Difficulty seperation

[OnlyMeiya]

So I had the idea that instead of "Stat padding" zeds the difficulty could work differently in the regard that the difficulty influences

things like Zed pathing, digging, what items will and will not spawn.

 

LEAVE ZED HP ALONE. Im trying to ingrain in everyone a sense of difficulty scaling WITHOUT touching stats like hp!

 

For instance, if you play on the lowest difficulty, zed are basic plain idiots that wander around in circles and do almost nothing to persue the player other than mindless hitting of blocks and air, however, end game items like sniper/smg/ak are not lootable, reinfoirced concrete cannot be made, steel items cannot be made, zed do not deal increased damage to blocks, there is no stamina soft cap, no electricity, ect.Ferals/radiated zed do not apear

 

What this does is encourages the player that "If they want to see more of the game, they need to overcome their fears and play on the harder difficulties." This instantly adds replay value to the game.

 

If you play on the default difficulty zed are similar to how they are now, with semi cheesy pathing, but do not dig or jump. Everything is available except for steel, and some mods ect. Zed deal increased damage to wood and scrap iron blocks, radiated do not appear but feral will.

 

Harder difficulties will start unlocking things like vehicles, steel, but zed now have stronger sense of how to reach the players, they can dig, jump ect.

 

Now you get to the hardest difficulty of Insane.

 

Where zed run faster on horde nights, hit much harder, deal increased damage to reinforced concrete and steel blocks, zeds can dig and jump 2 meters, target supports, ect. food items are more scarce but resource gathering is compensated by increases per harvest, this is to reward the player for dealing with an increased difficulty, sense zed will deal more damage to blocks, harvesting should be increased to balance, special blocks end game that do not receive increased damage from zeds, special traps, special foods, ect, new weapons you won't find on easier difficulties, Radiated,feral, and special zombies will now appear.

 

I think you get the idea. Zeds will now laugh at your cheaply put together "Horde cheese pathing" base

 

This is what I've been trying to influence everyone to understand, is difficulty doesn't mean "Increase hp to max" and "Cripple" The player to crazy weak levels, (That is artificial difficulty that just creates more grindy chore work) you can leave all that alone and still achieve this if you employ different systems into different difficulties.

 

Give us challenge, and give is ways to apply our creativity to overcome that challenge without making it feel like a boring chore (Grind more arrows), but by expanding and giving us more options, rather than taking them away.

 

Using this method should excite players to try the harder difficulties, rather than dread them due to knowing "Its just going to be grinder)

 

Instead the prospect is "Omg i can't wait see what new items and crazy features this difficulty has!"

[Kattla]

+1. I'd like to see difficulty meaning much more then it does today.

[Scyris]

I'd like to see diffculty JUST effect zombie damage/block damage. On warrior the player hits for about 20-25% less damage or so than the gear says, zombies however hit 50% harder at least for entity damage. Though it also effecting the AI would be a nice combo too, with Nomad being default with a decent chance of having dumb zombies, where as insane, you never get the stupid zombies. Its one of the reasons I disliked the certan mods, the zombies just felt way to damn tanky that it was a major chore to have to kill any of them for a while. Mod creators need to learn that adding more grind does not equal more challenge, its just more grind.