PC Why A17 matches more than my expectations

No I am asking if there are other ways to get xp without killing zombies? But if that is the the only way to progress that is fine.
Player level does matters I believe in this game? i.e. to progress to farm to build to fight to run... maybe I am confused!
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Not enough hours on A17 to be sure.. but killing 1 zombie gives XP like hitting 700 times a tree.. or such (when starting a new game).

To grow quickly and gain skill points (and get perks to gather more, losing less stamina etc..) the easy way is killing zombies,

right now getting ONLY xp by farming, crafting, looting seems a bit hard..

Probably if you grow slower.. the zombies are less dangerous, so if you prefer to chop and dig like hell te get your levels.. it's ok.

But i think that it can take a looot more time.. and to level up that way at higher levels it can take a life.

I'm not sure if now killing zombies with traps gives XP.. but i don't think so! (if you're more like a passive killer :p )

 
I had almost lost faith.I have lost

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Experience (and player level) IS the only thing that matters now. The game no longer cares what activities you perform in a day, only how much Experience you earned. If I spend all day killing zombies and you spend all day mining rocks, then next day, I will be many levels higher than you and have many more points to spend. I could place those points into Mining skills and now be much better than you at mining, even though I have never done it and you have.

Put another way....

Want to mine more from boulders? -> go kill zombies

Want to do more damage with guns? -> go kill zombies

Want to craft higher level tools -> go kill zombies

Want to loot cars better? -> go kill zombies

Seeing a pattern yet????

 
Experience (and player level) IS the only thing that matters now. The game no longer cares what activities you perform in a day, only how much Experience you earned. If I spend all day killing zombies and you spend all day mining rocks, then next day, I will be many levels higher than you and have many more points to spend. I could place those points into Mining skills and now be much better than you at mining, even though I have never done it and you have.
Put another way....

Want to mine more from boulders? -> go kill zombies

Want to do more damage with guns? -> go kill zombies

Want to craft higher level tools -> go kill zombies

Want to loot cars better? -> go kill zombies

Seeing a pattern yet????
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And with that higher player level you get much tougher enemies and you die. And then you complain about dying. The circle of life.

 
If I was in a post-apocalyptic world, I would not be worrying about my level or my gamestage...so I don't. I worry about finding food and a safe place, then I worry about finding supplies and fortifications. After that, I think about exploring the area.

I'm winning my game, minimal zombie interactions required.

 
The game is linear now! kill zombies to progress is the game. there is no point doing anything apart from killing zombies to progress.

I think all the players who think this is great, think so now. I wonder how many of you will think so in a few months!

 
But I can not build a base at level 0 it would take me weeks with current stamina and resources and food.
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Rockspider try like that:

1) finish basic quests (skip the trader part if you get the 0.0 km bug)

2) find canned food or empty cans

3) find any source of water (river,lake,pool)

4) find a carcass on the road(i found 3-4 in 2 hours so it's easy) gather with stoneaxe (and get a bone > shiv)

5) find a VERY small isolated building (even ruins are ok, just high like 10~ blocks) ladder > small wood cube on top > wooden hatch and bed+campfire+chest inside

with empty cans + water source + campfire your hydration is ok (no items or perks needed)

by hiding here the nights you're safe (not the 7 day but it's ok)

the ONLY real problem is the food.. so here's 2 choices:

1) go around plains/forest to hunt (no boar/wolf if unlucky like me . :p ) with bow

2) loot CAREFULLY small buildings (if you're not good at melee as a player.. let them follow you outside and use bow)

* 3) yucca.. but desert is not everywhere :)

that way anyone can get to day 7 IMHO

and even then.. just find a "strong" place mainly in concrete, fortify and prepare something to escape.. just be sure to be not too near your "real" base.

Even in other versions i trusted not much to pass the horde night in my REAL base..

a fake base just to get all the hits is the best way to handle that nightmare!

 
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Rockspider try like that:
1) finish basic quests (skip the trader part if you get the 0.0 km bug)

2) find canned food or empty cans

3) find any source of water (river,lake,pool)

4) find a carcass on the road(i found 3-4 in 2 hours so it's easy) gather with stoneaxe (and get a bone > shiv)

5) find a VERY small isolated building (even ruins are ok, just high like 10~ blocks) ladder > small wood cube on top > wooden hatch and bed+campfire+chest inside

with empty cans + water source + campfire your hydration is ok (no items or perks needed)

by hiding here the nights you're safe (not the 7 day but it's ok)

the ONLY real problem is the food.. so here's 2 choices:

1) go around plains/forest to hunt (no boar/wolf if unlucky like me . :p ) with bow

2) loot CAREFULLY small buildings (if you're not good at melee as a player.. let them follow you outside and use bow)

* 3) yucca.. but desert is not everywhere :)

that way anyone can get to day 7 IMHO

and even then.. just find a "strong" place mainly in concrete, fortify and prepare something to escape.. just be sure to be not too near your "real" base.

Even in other versions i trusted not much to pass the horde night in my REAL base..

a fake base just to get all the hits is the best way to handle that nightmare!
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Thank you for your ideas :)

I did take over a forge house in my 3rd play through with a forge but it is so slow to gather any wood or stone. I did try to make the walls abit stronger with cobblestone rock upgrades but wow it is slow going. Boars are tough to kill and take loads of arrows.

Probably just going to stick to a16 untill the next patch and try again :)

 
Thank you for your ideas :)
I did take over a forge house in my 3rd play through with a forge but it is so slow to gather any wood or stone. I did try to make the walls abit stronger with cobblestone rock upgrades but wow it is slow going. Boars are tough to kill and take loads of arrows.

Probably just going to stick to a16 untill the next patch and try again :)
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Focus on earning cash and get an iron pickaxe from the trader.

Stone will be very easy and with a stone shovel you can get enough dirt for cobblestone walls

 
Zombies harder? Yeah, if by zombies spawning out of thing air near you means harder.

As soon as i put 2 ponts into +50% mele damage to head, and a few in less stamina cost, killing zombies is much easier than in a16. I just have to hit them 3 times with a power attack to the head, which takes me less than 10 seconds. With a frikin lvl 1 wood club.

Its easier and faster than in a16 not harder. But, its also more boring, bc I get an endless stream of zombies. Killing a few zombies in this game is fun. Killing 120 zombies for clearing 2 houses (as registered in my online tab), is not fun.

So no, Im not whining about difficulty. I farm zombies and xp much faster than in a16. But its much more boring. I want to explore, clear houses, gather and build. And do all that while fighting zombies. Not fight zombies non stop.

 
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In a mod it's completely possible.
Scrub the quality/probability templates from loot and the gamestage/entitygroups files.

No gamestaged anything.
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Don't get me wrong, some kind of difficulty scaling is needed, and level scaling here has come a long way and it's not that obvious. The kind of difficulty scaling that "Don't Starve" has (global time+random events+areas) is my personal favorite kind. In vanilla Oblivion level scaling was atrocious for example - scaling felt too artificial. With the OOO mod, scaling was done much more organically, by being mostly area depedent.

For example, here I would prefer if it was a bit more area/POI dependent and less dependent on levels and days alive. BM groups obviously can't be area dependent but it could still be more of a mix of global time dependence and softer level and tech (it is tied with levels anyway atm) dependence.

A stronger global time dependence would raise the overall difficulty if your pace is too slow compared to the average pace the game encourages you to have, and it wouldn't be to the liking of everyone for sure, but it would feel less artificial and player levels would be more of an upgrade and less of a "penalty". But then, addressing the "have to grind for levels even faster" problem that will emerge with this extra factor, would require you to change a another batch of things.

 
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Zombies harder? Yeah, if by zombies spawning out of thing air near you means harder.
As soon as i put 2 ponts into +50% mele damage to head, and a few in less stamina cost, killing zombies is much easier than in a16. I just have to hit them 3 times with a power attack to the head, which takes me less than 10 seconds. With a frikin lvl 1 wood club.

Its easier and faster than in a16 not harder. But, its also more boring, bc I get an endless stream of zombies. Killing a few zombies in this game is fun. Killing 120 zombies for clearing 2 houses (as registered in my online tab), is not fun.

So no, Im not whining about difficulty. I farm zombies and xp much faster than in a16. But its much more boring. I want to explore, clear houses, gather and build. And do all that while fighting zombies. Not fight zombies non stop.
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Difficulty is not "zero", ofc if you play good and got no random event or bad spawn.. it's nearly impossibile to die.

1) You still can explore

2) If you don't like killing all the zombies and you find them not a big threat you can even loot-run without killing them all (i can't.. good for you if you can)

3) when you get fast at the required level you can get perks for gathering resources and build.. i bet that with right tools and perks you will gather/build faster and better than A16 with maxed skills(not tested yet, but ill bet on that).

The "boring" zombie killing (in a zombie game it's like 30-60% of the fun at least i think) is just what you need to level up faster.

When you level up you can specialize in all-but-killing perks.. so i don't see the "i must kill zombies non stop" part in that.

I like to build too, but doing what you like from start and "with ease" IS the fun killer (for me).

I agree that a more peaceful path to XP (but less rewarding than killing zeds) can be cool if someone is THAT scared of fighting.

But man.. it's like asking for a good beef in a vegan restaurant. You ask for some zeds, you ask killing them!

 
so i don't see the "i must kill zombies non stop" part in that.
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As an example, I spawned near 2 houses. I wanted to explore/loot those houses and either move on or use one as my base for that night. Well, I spent one and a half day clearing those houses, bc they kept spitting zombies at me. zombie kill count was 120 once I was done. ofc I like killing zombies too in a zombie game, but not so much as to be doing that 80% of the time. The combat in this game is decent, but not good. I would play dying light or other more combat focused games for killin zombies in a cool way. But this game is so much more, and I see the focus of the game shifting into trying to make us be fighting zombies almost all the time. Every step they have taken points in that direction, and that surprises me considering they have the best defense building system of any game I know, while a pretty meh combat system

 
You realise that once everyone becomes familiar with the mini-dungeon POIs, they will just nerd-pole up to the roof (or wherever), and dig straight into the "treasure room", by-passing all the content that TFP spent a year devising?
I feel the POI mini-dungeons is a pointless and very over-done mechanic. How I long for "vanilla" house I can loot quickly and normally.
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Agree, mini-dungeon POIs don't work that great in a fully destructible world. OK, so I went into one of those houses, promptly fell through the floor, got jumped and died - my own fault, of course. I won't do that again *ever*, so the rest of these cleverly devised death traps are wasted efforts, as I will simply dig, hack and rebuild my way to all the loot spots. The penalty for making one wrong step is simply too high vs the reward.

 
As an example, I spawned near 2 houses. I wanted to explore/loot those houses and either move on or use one as my base for that night. Well, I spent one and a half day clearing those houses, bc they kept spitting zombies at me. zombie kill count was 120 once I was done. ofc I like killing zombies too in a zombie game, but not so much as to be doing that 80% of the time. The combat in this game is decent, but not good. I would play dying light or other more combat focused games for killin zombies in a cool way. But this game is so much more, and I see the focus of the game shifting into trying to make us be fighting zombies almost all the time. Every step they have taken points in that direction, and that surprises me considering they have the best defense building system of any game I know, while a pretty meh combat system
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Honestly i cleared only 4-5 small to medium houses in the last build so i can't say much about re-spawning..

120 zombies in 2 houses are a lot.. you mean big ones? (2-3 floors or huge dimensions)

if not.. ok, i agree that 120 z needs just a bit of tweaking :p

I'm sure that IT is not the way the spawning is supposed to work.. ill post a bug for sure if it happens to me (barely killed 30-40 zombies with 2 cleared small houses the first days(3-5 z each), ill check the current kill count this evening after 3 medium houses).

I managed to work my way without looting all the time, but i actively looked for zombies to level up.

No zombies falling from sky BUT i'm nearly sure 1 or 2 popped on my back (checked behind me 1 sec before da bastard hit me)

Tought the way they popped was "intelligent" enough to make me doubt of being not enough "prudent" in my looting.. instead accusing the spawn system.

Going in a big Shamway, so ill get back asap with more infos :)

 
Agree, mini-dungeon POIs don't work that great in a fully destructible world.
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Depends on their design. If it's a linear "going through x enemies/traps to find the loot room in the end" ofc they won't work. If it's more of a "loot randomly distributed through the POI with scattered traps/enemies" (more like a normal house), they will work.

 
As an example, I spawned near 2 houses. I wanted to explore/loot those houses and either move on or use one as my base for that night. Well, I spent one and a half day clearing those houses, bc they kept spitting zombies at me. zombie kill count was 120 once I was done. ofc I like killing zombies too in a zombie game, but not so much as to be doing that 80% of the time. The combat in this game is decent, but not good. I would play dying light or other more combat focused games for killin zombies in a cool way. But this game is so much more, and I see the focus of the game shifting into trying to make us be fighting zombies almost all the time. Every step they have taken points in that direction, and that surprises me considering they have the best defense building system of any game I know, while a pretty meh combat system
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If you're getting 120 zombies out of two average sized houses you're doing something wrong. Like going more than 30m away from it which despawns and then resets the poi to an untouched state.

 
If you're getting 120 zombies out of two average sized houses you're doing something wrong. Like going more than 30m away from it which despawns and then resets the poi to an untouched state.
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This. I mean, I looted two forge houses, and each only spawned five zombies.

Maybe people need to stop freaking out and realize that it is experimental. I suspect most of the extreme encounters (high spawn rates, high-level zombies, etc) are because of boinked experimental.

 
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