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Subquake's Undead Legacy

SCORPIONS ...

TL/DR: scorpions are broken

I attempted to do a play-through in harder biomes (no grasslands), in the 20.6 UL build. (Nomad/permadeath) And scorpions are just out of control.

Ended up in the snow biome. And on my map, scorpions were about as common as lumberjacks.

The playthrough degenerated into 100% focus on avoiding scorpions, and none of the rest of the game mechanics mattered at all.

I killed a zombie bear and a regular bear on days 1 and 2, just because I had to kill bears to find pathways where I wouldn't aggro a scorpion. I cleared a tier 3 POI (the house with the brick & iron fence around it, and the main loot in the sewer underneath) to use as a base. It's a great base poi. I was playing 'very well' you could say.

But late on day 2, a scorpion finally heard me inside my house. I helped it break 1 brick block out of the wall so i could fight it. I put 12 arrows, and 75 9mm rounds into it, and then just melee'd it for about 5 minutes. As soon as I ran out of 9mm, it started out-healing my melee attacks (i have health bars). I was in a near perfect defensive position, and I had found a 'good' pistol, and used every offensive resource I had. And it just busted apart my wall, tore a drive-through through the house, and chased me out into the night, in the snow biome, on night 2, poisoned.

Once the scorpion heard me in my base, the next 15 minutes was really just me dragging out my inevitable demise and the end of the play-through. Rather frustrating. especially since I was playing smart, and doing everything right. I mean I killed 2 bears, a dire wolf, a cougar, countless lumberjacks, and cleared a tier 3 poi with some ferals in it to use as a base ...all half nekkid using twigs & rocks. I don't think I was having a skill-issue.

A demolisher, or a radiated cop or wight (even all 3 at once) would have been FAR easier to deal with.

I like a challenge, I'm not apposed to hard enemies. But these things were 'everywhere'. 3/4 of the town was inaccessible because of roaming scorpions.

I'm afraid I'm going back to the 20.5 version. The version with scorpions is still "7d2d" while you're in the grasslands, and then if you leave the grasslands, zombies don't matter at all, and the game becomes almost purely "Scorpion Apocalypse" instead. If i turn down the difficulty to n00b, maybe they'd be manageable, but then the zombies would be far too easy. Also, that massive health & damage resistance they have, plus the regeneration, and on top of that the 1-shot (delayed) kill attack.. they are just wildly out of balance unless they're used sparingly as a late-game boss fight type creature. If you turn up difficulty at all, scorpions turn the game into a crazy ammo-grind "at best".

I love the look, animations, etc. Very cool. But mechanically, they're just game breaking. When a player with a bone shiv, club, crude bow, and trash 9mm consciously chooses to attack a zombie bear (and has the skills to win), just because every other compass direction has a scorpion in it... something's very not right.

PS: This is my first post here. And I wanted to add that I LOVE the mod. UL has become my default 7d2d. The experimental version gave me zero bugs, fantastic work.

But I'm going back to the previous version for now. The scorpions just throw the game balance too far out. Rare, or GS-linked spawning would work. But if they're gonna be like ants at a picnic, they need to be nerfed, hard. Personally I'd rather see them NOT nerfed, just rare. I'm also not too sure about gate-keeping the poison cure behind being able to defeat them. It makes sense, but it's pretty brutal balance-wise.

 
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K4te said:
SCORPIONS ...

TL/DR: scorpions are broken

I attempted to do a play-through in harder biomes (no grasslands), in the 20.6 UL build. (Nomad/permadeath) And scorpions are just out of control.

Ended up in the snow biome. And on my map, scorpions were about as common as lumberjacks.

The playthrough degenerated into 100% focus on avoiding scorpions, and none of the rest of the game mechanics mattered at all.

I killed a zombie bear and a regular bear on days 1 and 2, just because I had to kill bears to find pathways where I wouldn't aggro a scorpion. I cleared a tier 3 POI (the house with the brick & iron fence around it, and the main loot in the sewer underneath) to use as a base. It's a great base poi. I was playing 'very well' you could say.

But late on day 2, a scorpion finally heard me inside my house. I helped it break 1 brick block out of the wall so i could fight it. I put 12 arrows, and 75 9mm rounds into it, and then just melee'd it for about 5 minutes. As soon as I ran out of 9mm, it started out-healing my melee attacks (i have health bars). I was in a near perfect defensive position, and I had found a 'good' pistol, and used every offensive resource I had. And it just busted apart my wall, tore a drive-through through the house, and chased me out into the night, in the snow biome, on night 2, poisoned.

Once the scorpion heard me in my base, the next 15 minutes was really just me dragging out my inevitable demise and the end of the play-through. Rather frustrating. especially since I was playing smart, and doing everything right.

A demolisher, or a radiated cop or wight (even all 3 at once) would have been FAR easier to deal with.

I like a challenge, I'm not apposed to hard enemies. But these things were 'everywhere'. 3/4 of the town was inaccessible because of roaming scorpions.

I'm afraid I'm going back to the 20.5 version. The version with scorpions is still "7d2d" while you're in the grasslands, and then if you leave the grasslands, zombies don't matter at all, and the game becomes almost purely "Scorpion Apocalypse" instead. If i turn down the difficulty to n00b, maybe they'd be manageable, but then the zombies would be far too easy. Also, that massive health & damage resistance they have, plus the regeneration, and on top of that the 1-shot (delayed) kill attack.. they are just wildly out of balance unless they're used sparingly as a late-game boss fight type creature. If you turn up difficulty at all, scorpions turn the game into a crazy ammo-grind "at best".

I love the look, animations, etc. Very cool. But mechanically, they're just game breaking. When a player with a bone shiv, club, crude bow, and trash 9mm consciously chooses to attack a zombie bear (and has the skills to win), just because every other compass direction has a scorpion in it... something's very not right.

PS: This is my first post here. And I wanted to add that I LOVE the mod. UL has become my default 7d2d. The experimental version gave me zero bugs, fantastic work.

But I'm going back to the previous version for now. The scorpions just throw the game balance too far out. Rare, or GS-linked spawning would work. But if they're gonna be like ants at a picnic, they need to be nerfed, hard. Personally I'd rather see them NOT nerfed, just rare. I'm also not too sure about gate-keeping the poison cure behind being able to defeat them. It makes sense, but it's pretty brutal balance-wise.
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That's the whole point behind introduction of scorpions, to deter people going early on in the game in the other biomes outside of forest.

You're not supposed to fight them with bone shivs and wooden clubs

 
Subquake said:
That's the whole point behind introduction of scorpions, to deter people going early on in the game in the other biomes outside of forest.

You're not supposed to fight them with bone shivs and wooden clubs
Click to expand...
Well, they certainly do that.

But on a balanced map, that does turn 7d2d into a 1/4 zombie survival game, and a 3/4 scorpion survival game. That's a very large change to the game.

It's subjective of course, but it's not my cup of tea.

Is there a way to edit files to remove them or change their spawning on my end? Cuz literally everything else about UL is superior to vanilla or DF in my opinion.

(technically I found a steel spear in the basement of the poi, so I was hitting it with that, but i wasn't skilled in it)

 
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K4te said:
Well, they certainly do that.

But on a balanced map, that does turn 7d2d into a 1/4 zombie survival game, and a 3/4 scorpion survival game. That's a very large change to the game.

It's subjective of course, but it's not my cup of tea.

Is there a way to edit files to remove them or change their spawning on my end? Cuz literally everything else about UL is superior to vanilla or DF in my opinion.

(technically I found a steel spear in the basement of the poi, so I was hitting it with that, but i wasn't skilled in it)
Click to expand...
There not that big a change and like all other zombies you can avoid them and they wonder off soon.

They are less tankie they they were and may need a little tweaking since they dont seem to be effected by electricity.

Given that there are other zombies that a person should avoid when running around with a bone shiv this game breaking in anyway.

 
K4te said:
Well, they certainly do that.

But on a balanced map, that does turn 7d2d into a 1/4 zombie survival game, and a 3/4 scorpion survival game. That's a very large change to the game.

It's subjective of course, but it's not my cup of tea.

Is there a way to edit files to remove them or change their spawning on my end? Cuz literally everything else about UL is superior to vanilla or DF in my opinion.

(technically I found a steel spear in the basement of the poi, so I was hitting it with that, but i wasn't skilled in it)
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Scorpions is just the start, I have plans to have a zoo of custom creatures eventually in the mod of various difficulty levels and zombies will not be the main threat but one of them.

 
Magnus33john said:
There not that big a change and like all other zombies you can avoid them and they wonder off soon.

They are less tankie they they were and may need a little tweaking since they dont seem to be effected by electricity.

Given that there are other zombies that a person should avoid when running around with a bone shiv this game breaking in anyway.
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Technically I shot it 79 times with a scrap pistol (35 dmg), and then stabbed it continuously with a found steel spear, in a 'perfect' defensive position.

I killed the bears and dire wolf and cougar with twigs & rocks. I only mention them for comparison purposes.

I didn't attack a scorpion with a bone shiv. I attacked bears with a bone shiv to avoid scorpions.

Avoiding them? Maybe i have a bug (pun intended) but the map was full of them. It's a miracle I went most of 2 days without having to fight one. Well not a miracle really, I just ran headfirst into bears & such to avoid the scorpions.

If they were rare enough to avoid, I wouldn't bring it up.

Anyway, 20.6 gives you map biome sliders. I had wanted to do a series of biome-specific play throughs. And I always use UL cuz UL is awesome. But that combo isn't gonna work with scorpions. They overshadow everything else in the game by a wide margin. Which would be 'awesome' if they were actually rare.

 
And nothing is set in stone, balancing is an ongoing process and I'm open to feedback and values will be tweaked, the more feedback I gather from people of what's good, what's bad, what's terrible and what's great.

 
Subquake said:
Scorpions is just the start, I have plans to have a zoo of custom creatures eventually in the mod of various difficulty levels and zombies will not be the main threat but one of them.
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I'll definitely try it out :)

For now though, I'm trying to do a series of biome-specific play throughs. So I'm gonna have to go back to the 20.5 version.

 
K4te said:
Anyway, 20.6 gives you map biome sliders. I had wanted to do a series of biome-specific play throughs. And I always use UL cuz UL is awesome. But that combo isn't gonna work with scorpions. They overshadow everything else in the game by a wide margin. Which would be 'awesome' if they were actually rare.
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Different biomes have different loot bonus modifiers, it's not just visuals, you have from easiest to hardest: forest, desert, snow and wasteland. And I'm balancing UL according to that, plus I have plans to introduce more biomes in future.

 
Subquake said:
And nothing is set in stone, balancing is an ongoing process and I'm open to feedback and values will be tweaked, the more feedback I gather from people of what's good, what's bad, what's terrible and what's great.
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As long as we dont see one of these running around it would be too horrifying

190702170740-trump-baby-balloon-washington-permit-july-fourth-lead-vpx-00000529.jpg

 
Subquake said:
Different biomes have different loot bonus modifiers, it's not just visuals, you have from easiest to hardest: forest, desert, snow and wasteland. And I'm balancing UL according to that, plus I have plans to introduce more biomes in future.
Click to expand...
I know about the biome loot stages. Not my first rodeo with the zombies ;) The vanilla game has some balance to difficulty/loot stage though. Exaggerating that by a lot seems... I'll go with "very tricky to balance".

There's uh... "MMO logic" where you just don't play outside your difficulty zone or you're toast. That's a playstyle. It's fine. It's not how I'm used to playing 7d2d is all. I'm used to hard areas being very difficult and requiring great skill to go into early. Not used to them being effectively no-go zones. I won't say it's a 'bad' change, but it's a very 'big' change.

For the moment, scorpions kinda overshadow the rest of the game. I've done grasslands and then scorpions as well. It was a pretty harsh ammo-grind, even when well equipped. I was just kinda shocked that scorpions become totally un-killable (no matter what skill or positional advantage you try) with early game gear. I didn't realize the other biomes were so strictly cut off from viable early game play in 20.6 UL.

I'm really curious to see the other creatures you come up with :)  

And new biomes! that sounds incredible. I for one really miss the burnt forest (the navez version, without landmines & bricks everywhere hehe).

 
Subquake said:
And nothing is set in stone, balancing is an ongoing process and I'm open to feedback and values will be tweaked, the more feedback I gather from people of what's good, what's bad, what's terrible and what's great.
Click to expand...
Well I don't think 'anything' in UL is terrible :)

Personally, I'd kill the regen on scorpions, and scale back their spawn rate.

Maybe I just saw so many of them because I was in the snow (which spawns animals heavily)? But the place was totally infested.

Main reason to kill the regen: uh... ok, you know how Dutch kills the Predator in the movie Predator? He's outmatched in every way, but through great skill and planning, he wins in the end? If the predator had regen, then the movie would have sucked ;)

hp pool, damage resistance, and regen... synergize a little too well. It's like mixing drugs & booze. It's multiplicative. The effective time-to-kill is sky high, way higher than just adding the regen/hp/and resistance, they multiply each other.

plus a 1-shot kill mechanic? it's kinda god-tier.

It just got kinda silly, being in a really superior position, and spending all my ammo, breaking every tool I had on endless regen, to no avail.

I'd also consider making the antidote to the poison a little easier to get. if you get touched by scorpion-love, it's a little harsh to say your options are "be high level or just die".

Just my 2 cents.

Oh... I wouldn't mind if there was totally un-kill-able enemies in the game. Even in late game. Like Mr-X, "run or die". Or a giga in ARK (which is more "run 'and' die" hehe). That can be fun. Just 'rare', ideally  ;)

When a game forces you to have your head on a swivel to avoid death, that's exciting. When immanent death is in every direction, then there's not much point in keeping a sharp look out anymore, and it kinda kills the suspense.

 
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I have a question for you Subquake if you do not mind. I have tried looking around this forum and others to find a list of vehicles with their stats and information and what not but I can not find any such list. Does one exist? If so, can you point me in the right direction, please? If a list doesn't exist, could one be made possibly sometime in the future? Thank you! Also, you absolutely rock and have made it impossible for me to go back to vanilla again! :)

 
Good day Subquake, I repeat with the question (I did not see the answer). I don't see an opportunity to invent a recipe for a silencer (Or now it's just a drop/purchase). Judging by the gameplay, scorpions have occupied a niche of respawn zombie bears, and now there is a shortage of testosterone, is there a chance that you will add it to drop scorpions or create a recipe for its manufacture? Thank you in advance for any answer.

 
Lorri said:
I have a question for you Subquake if you do not mind. I have tried looking around this forum and others to find a list of vehicles with their stats and information and what not but I can not find any such list. Does one exist? If so, can you point me in the right direction, please? If a list doesn't exist, could one be made possibly sometime in the future? Thank you! Also, you absolutely rock and have made it impossible for me to go back to vanilla again! :)
Click to expand...
Nevermind. Someone was kind enough to send me a link to all the information I could ever need about UL. Thank you so much Subquake for making such an awesome mod!!!

 
Shezarr said:
Good day Subquake, I repeat with the question (I did not see the answer). I don't see an opportunity to invent a recipe for a silencer (Or now it's just a drop/purchase). Judging by the gameplay, scorpions have occupied a niche of respawn zombie bears, and now there is a shortage of testosterone, is there a chance that you will add it to drop scorpions or create a recipe for its manufacture? Thank you in advance for any answer.
Click to expand...
schematics for mods can't be researched, have to find the mod or the schematic to make it.

 
Lorri said:
Nevermind. Someone was kind enough to send me a link to all the information I could ever need about UL. Thank you so much Subquake for making such an awesome mod!!!
Click to expand...
I would love a link to more info, I never know what the pro's and cons of this weapon vs that one if the ingame stats look similar, and am 100% clueless about vehicle info.

Just a side question that may be a factor in K4te's scorpion thing... I've noticed that when we start a new game we have spawns all around us day 1 (started a new game today and I could count 19 zombies out the window night 1). By the night of day 2 it was maybe a dozen, and by day 3 it was 1-4 zombies. By day 6 or 7 I could run around at night and would only occasionally see a zombie, and rarely see like 1 by our base. Is it maybe those first couple of days we haven't explored much of the map and so everything is spawning on the part we have explored, aka right on top of us, and more we play the more stuff is spawning in the newly explored areas? I assume this is just a base 7 days to die thing, but its been so long since I've played the base game I really don't know, but I'm assuming this is normal?

 
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