PC zombie loot is gone now.

Linkhead2

Linkhead2

New member
so by far One of the most debated thing so far in the game is zombie loot. A very diverse topic to cling upon due to its pros and cons. Unfortunately im one of those cons, those people who dislike the changes and im here to explain why.

it is by far a core mechanic in 7 days to die's process, and to remove it this late into the game is an odd choice but not a good one either.

7 day hordes - so on night 7 hordes of zombies come to your base to try and feast on your tasty flesh. Welp if you build good base defenses and survive....thats all that happens, you move onto day 8. its not like A16 where you get rewarded for surviving the night and have all these lootable goodies that your dumb zombies dropped. Seems awfully anticlimactic.

Base defenses - Welp setting up base defenses seems kinda useless now. You can store your stuff in there but it doesn't mean you can move onto the next house to avoid the zombies. Honestly it seems like zombies can just be avoided. theres no push to try and get them.

Zombies are just XP farms - to the small minority of people who care about xp and want to risk meleeing a zombie with a club until its a bloody pulp. go right ahead but i will say a percentage of people feel soulless when killing a zombie.

Ill say again, it seems like zombies can just be avoided. theres no push to try and kill them. "Back in my day" you felt "Oh zombie, if i kill him what will i get?" Now its just "oh zombie. no point wasting my ammo on him, just avoid" becuase during the day they are pretty slow.

"but animals dont have loot" Yes they do, you can salvage them for meat

"Whaaaaat? missing loot time?" Yes! becuase about 50% of the containers aren't lootable, are they?

"just go back to A16 then" well i would but i feel like itll be outdated within a few months.

"they have added containers to the game in every POI" but the wandering hordes? do they just happen to contain crates on them?

idk what thought they had in their mind to try and remove almost two core factors: Loot in general and zombie loot. But i hope its a goodie. :) Im all ears to hear criticisms on my opinions

Long story short. "High risk, low reward" system in place = unfun

Linky signing off.

 
On our last run, for the day 7 horde we had bought a crossbow, found exactly NO guns, and had a t-shirt and a puffer coat between the two of us. We had cleared several POIs for quests, and several wandering hordes. Not very exciting, to say the least. Come horde night we were woefully under equipped.

 
Linkhead2,

There's lots of debate both for and against the new zombie loot - and to be accurate it's not "gone", but instead of every zombie dropping a small amount of mostly low value loot, you'll now get the occasional zombie (about 2%) drop some more valuable loot.

Personally, I prefer it. I don't have to worry about trying to loot every zombie I kill, I can just kill 'em and get on with the business of looting POI's for "moah lewtz".

I do miss though, where I'd make a point of killing nurse zombies hoping for a bandage, but overall, I think the new system is better.

You also mentioned having trouble finding loot in general. Could explain some on that? You mean you're not getting loot (or enough of it) from POI's for example?

 
Linkhead2,
There's lots of debate both for and against the new zombie loot - and to be accurate it's not "gone", but instead of every zombie dropping a small amount of mostly low value loot, you'll now get the occasional zombie (about 2%) drop some more valuable loot.

Personally, I prefer it. I don't have to worry about trying to loot every zombie I kill, I can just kill 'em and get on with the business of looting POI's for "moah lewtz".

I do miss though, where I'd make a point of killing nurse zombies hoping for a bandage, but overall, I think the new system is better.

You also mentioned having trouble finding loot in general. Could explain some on that? You mean you're not getting loot (or enough of it) from POI's for example?
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We are getting formal here xD

to be honest, it is kinda devoid, a core mechanic of the game has been ripped out and now killing zombies seems like a chore than generally being an exciting event. Thats one of my main points.

with zombies having a harder chance to harm the player with infections and stuns, itd make more sence that theyd drop weak/average supplies. To keep players more interested in killing them than avoiding them.

And by when i mean a lack of loot i mean a lot less loot has been cut out from the game, for example we have already looted/unlootable objects that you can no longer interact with. open cupboards/filing cabinets. you name it

 
I like the new system but zombie loot is a bit too rare. Zombies dropped too much loot before, particularly food. They dropped lots of water and food. Sham Sandwiches and Rotting Flesh in particular were filling and food poisoning was irrelevant. At the very least, rarer zombies like ferals or irradiated should have a decent chance of dropping something. Even something relatively rare like cops rarely drop anything and you even have to make sure you kill them before they suicide before you have a chance at all.

 
I like the fact that when they DO drop something it's actually good loot like a gun or something better than a couple nails or an gunpowder. And are you hitting POIs for loot? We've found LOTS of guns. Almost every small hosue we clear has at least one gun and/or some ammo in it. Gun safes also yield lots more usable loot.

 
And by when i mean a lack of loot i mean a lot less loot has been cut out from the game, for example we have already looted/unlootable objects that you can no longer interact with. open cupboards/filing cabinets. you name it
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When MadMole first explained there were going to implement this in one of his videos, I thought this meant something different. I thought everything would still be lootable, but if it turned out empty, or you took everything inside, it would show the cabinet door open. Dumbing down the searching for loot doesn't feel right to me in a survival game. It also means, if we decide to turn the POI into a base, that container can't be used to store loot.

 
In a bit over 200 zombies dead, I have gotten two loot drops. One was forged iron and the other was something I sold (maybe a 30 min buff).

I like that the loot is better quality, as I am no longer shuffling through so much crap. I would like to see the drop rate tuned upward a little bit, but I like the direction of the change.

I would also not be opposed to a blood moon quest that gives you rewards like the trader quests. Maybe a reward for killing N zombies and another reward for staying alive all night while killing N zombies. That gives a positive incentive to engage in active combat for the BM while also rewarding smart play that avoids deaths.

 
It also means, if we decide to turn the POI into a base, that container can't be used to store loot.
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An interesting idea on this would be to allow a player to upgrade the open/empty version of the container to the regular version.

I really like the current implementation because it lets me streamline searching. I’d like it more if all empty containers showed as visually open but could have stuff put into them, making them then closed.

 
I wouldn't mind something like Rust has, a signal or grenade that calls for an air drop as reward for the horde night. But please, no, no more hundreds of memory-hogging, exploding glitchy gore blocks that one must smack for half an hour that contain mostly garbage loot that one would get by looting houses and such. I love how the only drop is rare and contains useful items. PLus, if the zombies brough you all of the random bull♥♥♥♥ or good loot to you, what point is there in scavenging the world? Zip.

 
7 day hordes - so on night 7 hordes of zombies come to your base to try and feast on your tasty flesh. Welp if you build good base defenses and survive....thats all that happens, you move onto day 8. its not like A16 where you get rewarded for surviving the night and have all these lootable goodies that your dumb zombies dropped. Seems awfully anticlimactic.
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The a16 was so flexible in its mechanics that I once set a challenge to myself buy starting a new SP game, and upon start moved the character to the first 1 square mile island I could find, plopped him down an started playing from there. My goal was to try to survive on that island without dying once and only using what I found and making what I could from that. I had to live off the land and was totally dependent on the random hordes to come buy because I had basically nothing but my starter equipment. I remember once I had to fend off a feral with my stone axe and I was running in circles for over five minutes trying to get hits in. It was pretty hair raising but I won that duel in the end.

It was a rough start because I didn't even find a cooking pot in the ruined building that was on the island. It took two weeks to build a decent underground shelter, three weeks to make a bellows because I had to wait for random dogs to spawn which i tried to kill with a very limited amount of arrows because it took 4 weeks to respawn resources. I was lucky enough to get two hares at one point. After four weeks I found my first corn seed on a zombie and started making a field that I left growing for another three weeks. It was an absolute grind and an awesome challenge. It was super cool that the game was so flexible to let me envision new ways of playing it and setting challenges. Without looting that possibility is gone. R.I.P.

 
The a16 was so flexible in its mechanics that I once set a challenge to myself buy starting a new SP game, and upon start moved the character to the first 1 square mile island I could find, plopped him down an started playing from there. My goal was to try to survive on that island without dying once and only using what I found and making what I could from that. I had to live off the land and was totally dependent on the random hordes to come buy because I had basically nothing but my starter equipment. I remember once I had to fend off a feral with my stone axe and I was running in circles for over five minutes trying to get hits in. It was pretty hair raising but I won that duel in the end.
It was a rough start because I didn't even find a cooking pot in the ruined building that was on the island. It took two weeks to build a decent underground shelter, three weeks to make a bellows because I had to wait for random dogs to spawn which i tried to kill with a very limited amount of arrows because it took 4 weeks to respawn resources. I was lucky enough to get two hares at one point. After four weeks I found my first corn seed on a zombie and started making a field that I left growing for another three weeks. It was an absolute grind and an awesome challenge. It was super cool that the game was so flexible to let me envision new ways of playing it and setting challenges. Without looting that possibility is gone. R.I.P.
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That sounds like a lot of fun.

We used to do PVP server competitions that were a lot of fun. Fresh start. 5 v 5. 48 hours. Whichever team has the most kills wins at the end of the timelimit. At that time, there was a healthy amount of scavenging for gun parts/tools/crafting armor/trying to find and raid their base and killing. Now, I think it would just devolve to limited looting of prefabs and completely killing each other with level 1 guns, which would be boring in my book. No more gun parts/quality levels removes the reason to try and steal from the other team. You just go into another prefab and find another gun. It shoots as good as any other gun.

 
I like the fact that when they DO drop something it's actually good loot like a gun or something better than a couple nails or an gunpowder. And are you hitting POIs for loot? We've found LOTS of guns. Almost every small hosue we clear has at least one gun and/or some ammo in it. Gun safes also yield lots more usable loot.
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My last two zombie loot drops:

5 9mm shells

1 beer and 2 9mm shells

so much for the rare but always good theory.....

 
My last two zombie loot drops:
5 9mm shells

1 beer and 2 9mm shells

so much for the rare but always good theory.....
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Yeah. I don't mind the new Z loot concept, I actually like that moment when finally a bag drops and I get all giddy "what's in it, what's in it??".

What I don't want to happen then is find 2 candle sticks. That's exactly the experience from the old loot system, only that it happens with much much lower frequency.

Needs a rewrite of loot tables badly. No candle sticks. No single cans of food or junk like that. I want to see guns, cool mods, significant amounts of ammo, maybe a fresh piece of armor or a nice tool.

Also related to the looting experience: Who else thinks the new random open containers would be much better if they worked dynamically? As in: If it's empty it shows as empty. If it has something in it upon next loot respawn it shows as closed. Would make revisiting a place more fun, I think. And would actually truly serve the function MM praised it for.

Applies mostly to MP servers that kinda depend on loot respawn, but even in SP I keep thinking what a shame and waste of a cool new graphical asset this static "forever useless, may as well hack this one for some wood"-container concept is.

 
That sounds like a lot of fun.
We used to do PVP server competitions that were a lot of fun. Fresh start. 5 v 5. 48 hours. Whichever team has the most kills wins at the end of the timelimit. At that time, there was a healthy amount of scavenging for gun parts/tools/crafting armor/trying to find and raid their base and killing. Now, I think it would just devolve to limited looting of prefabs and completely killing each other with level 1 guns, which would be boring in my book. No more gun parts/quality levels removes the reason to try and steal from the other team. You just go into another prefab and find another gun. It shoots as good as any other gun.
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As much as I think finding lots of individual gun parts was unrealistic - it extended the time it took for you to find a good weapon and it took a lot of work to keep it in good shape. Now that I tested a17, a team member found and handed me a lev 5 compound bow and that's what I stuck with, without any incentive to do anything at all different. Of course maybe there would have been some part I could have added to the thing (I don't even now but it would have been possible with guns at least) but the point is, once I had the highest level weapon there was no more challenge left to go get more of the same. I could just repair.

 
You also mentioned having trouble finding loot in general. Could explain some on that? You mean you're not getting loot (or enough of it) from POI's for example?
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I know in the game I started for 199, so far late in Day 6 I've found one half durability wrench, one half durability steel axe, both from POIs, and only ammo and a sweatshirt from 5 zed drops (out of a pile of them, though I forget the number and can't check). I have three pieces of clothing total, a puffer coat, a flannel shirt, and the sweatshirt, and that's it, other than what I made for myself. The (only?) vendor popped up over 5km away (I spawned against the rad zone in the NW corner, away from EVERYTHING) and I cannot get to him to utilize the workstations there for stuff. The standard POIs have been mostly empty, and the only guns I've gotten have been from air drops. It does seem like the loot is less than normal with the POIs, though that could be the RNG messing with me. :/

Definitely there needs to be an adjustment to the POI low end (and mid grade, probably as well) loot tables, given then zeds don't drop much anymore, to make up for the overall quantities. I would bet that those adjustments haven't been made yet, with more pressing things like CTDs to fix first.

 
The loot bag quality has seemed to be greatly improved overall from the old body looting system, but the rarity of loot bags has completely negated any benefit to higher quality loot. From what I see, maybe 1/100 kills will yield a loot bag. Before, if I looted 100 bodies, I would certainly have an inventory full and then some, but some of it would be decent quality (ammo, guns/parts, food, core resources, dukes, etc.) The only real offset for this is that now POIs have the looted container indicators and they upped the loot in the containers that aren't "looted" meaning you have a better chance of finding what you need from POIs instead of zombies. I wouldn't say it's compensated for the loss of body loot, but at least it helps you be able to hunt specific items more effectively.

 
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