Game feels like its punishing me for levelling up

[fishjie]

I play default difficulty level and have played since A15. In A16, game already felt like it was punishing me for levelling up. However, by the time I got steel armor and tools, I was pretty comfortable looting and raiding POIs. Sure there was an occasional irradiated zombie or two, but most of the time I could snipe the sleepers from far away.

 

In A17, I just hit level 80 with game stage > 200, still don't have steel armor, have steel tools, and am running into irradiated zombies all the time in POIs. I attempted a fetch quest in bear den, and what I believe to be 5 irradiated wights came out and destroyed me instantaneously. The game seems to be moving in the RPG direction with attributes and perks. However, in RPG games, the player gets stronger, not weaker as the game progresses. Even in games with level scaling like Oblivion and Skyrim, even though bandits run around with full daedric armor, you're strong enough to kill them, and you can loot their armor afterward.

 

In 7D2D the loot doesn't get better, the XP for an irradiated zombie is a joke considering how many bullets it takes to kill, and basically I don't want to do quests anymore, because more often than not its an insta fail, and even if I do complete the quest, the rewards don't make up for the bullets spent.

 

Things making the problem worse, the hitboxes in A17 feel more screwed up. In A16 I could use the sledgehammer very well, but now even though I swing right in front of me, it will miss. And because now zombies cause bleed effects way more often, meelee isn't worth it. So I have to use up bullets against irradiated bad guys. But loot isn't any better. Worse, I wasted a bunch of perk points in Daring Adventurer, but quests just aren't worth it and impossible to do (FIVE IRRADIATED WIGHTS. IN WHAT WORLD DOES THAT MAKE SENSE???). I also unlocked motorcycle, but no point to explore, because too many damn irradiated zombies. Another issue seems to be that the sleepers don't spawn until you enter the POI. In a16, I was able to snipe sleepers from afar, but now it seems they don't show up until I step inside and getsurrounded. A16 had issues with zombies teleporting behind you, but not as bad as in A17.

 

The end result is that its safer for me to stay at base and build underground, with a pit trap full of spikes next to my forges, and then craft some armor to sell at traders. I'm not sure my defenses will continue to hold on horde night at which point I will log out log back in after death to despawn the zombies, as this is the only way I see myself doing further progression.

 

It will cost 9 skill points to max out intellect (4 points for 9 intellect, 5 points for 10), then another point to unlock steel armor, and that's skill points I could put into stuff like healing factor, pain tolerance and headshots instead. So game punishes me for leveling up, and forces me into a play style of hide in base, craft stuff to sell at trader, forget wasting points into crafting skills because you can buy from trader and those precious points are better spent making yourself tougher, with end result being: DONT DO QUESTS DONT EXPLORE POIS after your game stage exceeds 200. Which seems silly because questing is fun and a brand new feature. But with the broken level scaling, quests are only doable from early to mid game. So that's fine, I'll adapt and continue playing, but its very disappointing not to be able to explore new POIs.

 

I play online multiplayer with my friends, and I see them dying all the time as well. Quite frustrating, please fix the level scaling and remove it from the game. The default difficulty should have heavily nerfed irradiated zombies - fewer HP, barely any regen, increased XP, and banned from regular POIs. Keep them only in dungeon type POIs, and only at the end, kind of like the skyscrapers in A16. Furthmore, places with irradiated zombies should have much better loot, so that its not a net ammo loss.

[katarynna]

Well that makes me glad I generally play single player.

 

I have found steel tools/armor early in every a17 play through, either as loot or at the trader. I guess multiplayer introduces more competition and makes it less likely that you are the one that obtains it?

 

On the other hand, in multiplayer you should be able to tag team clear poi's which should make dealing with irradiated mobs easier, especially if someone has the weapon mod that counteracts the rad buff.

[Scyris]

I think the whole spawning mechanics need a do-over, gamestage should generate a CHANCE of ferals/radiated zombies, but not guarntee it. Kinda like how gamestage affects loot right now, higher gamestage=better chance of better loot, but its never guarnted that you'll get better stuff. The zombie spawning should be made to be the same, as its pretty stupid for every single poi to be filled with nothing but ferals and radiated zombies.

[Roland]

What day was it? I’m wondering how quickly you are leveling up. If you level faster than it takes you to collect good gear then you could get in trouble.

[Royal Deluxe]

What day was it? I’m wondering how quickly you are leveling up. If you level faster than it takes you to collect good gear then you could get in trouble.

 

Well roland, i spend a few ingamedays by mining for ammo.

3 Quests later all 1500 (7mm) Bullets are gone (ok i had a few left every time of my stack of 500, so lets say 1350 Bullets)

 

And yes i have all good stuff, well except a rad remover, what is a bit bad if you have over a dozend green glowing z´s per POI. Normally i would not even enter a POI. But i want to make all quests this game

[icehot]

I think that's the point. People expect to level up fast and easy for some strange reason. If you're leveling up fast the game thinks you're having it too easy so increases the difficulty - it's possible your points are in the wrong place for taking POI's. My character is at a stage now where I can easily charge through tier V factory and apartment POI's absolutely filled with radiateds, with maybe spending around 200 bullets tops, and just play whack a mole with them. If they don't make it where you're surrounded by 10 to 20 radiated zombies by this stage, it'd be way too easy and boring.

[Ghostlight]

I think that's the point. People expect to level up fast and easy for some strange reason. If you're leveling up fast the game thinks you're having it too easy so increases the difficulty - it's possible your points are in the wrong place for taking POI's. My character is at a stage now where I can easily charge through tier V factory and apartment POI's absolutely filled with radiateds, with maybe spending around 200 bullets tops, and just play whack a mole with them. If they don't make it where you're surrounded by 10 to 20 radiated zombies by this stage, it'd be way too easy and boring.

 

This. If every POI was not filled with dozens if not hundreds of irradiated, it would frankly be no challenge whatsoever. Lowering the difficulty will fix it for you, OP. There's no shame in it. Also, you said you are playing multiplayer and you have specced Int, so surely all your buddies are specced for combat and can do all the looting? Finally, you are getting increased gamestage if you are all allied up, so it is meant to be like this.

 

What does seem to be broken / unbalanced is that dying only reduces your gamestage by a few points (my friend's went from 450 to 446 when he died recently).

 

I have to say I find it pretty annoying when someone complains about game difficulty when they are in a position to reduce the difficulty setting! That's what it's for!! Difficulty setting applies a multiplier to gamestage, so will slow your GS increase considerably if you lower it. You can always hike it back up once you are more specced for combat.

[Royal Deluxe]

My points are mostly in int, because i need them there.

(or better said 7,5,5,5,10)

And no, there is no way that i skill different

[icehot]

So you're character is basically a weak nerd, and you expect to be able to take all the tough POI's with that? Take some time to get passive XP and level up strength and fortitude.

[Royal Deluxe]

So you're character is basically a weak nerd, and you expect to be able to take all the tough POI's with that? Take some time to get passive XP and level up strength and fortitude.

 

My character is doing fine. Thats not the point.

And a rmy of Green glowing zombies in every poi is in no way more difficult than 1-2.

 

If you know they will be there you setup your raid fitting to that situation and even if they would place 500 in a poi i would not care. @ 500 i would simply clear the poi with a Inventory full of dynamite

[Ghostlight]

Well roland, i spend a few ingamedays by mining for ammo.

3 Quests later all 1500 (7mm) Bullets are gone (ok i had a few left every time of my stack of 500, so lets say 1350 Bullets)

 

You are using an AK for POIs? Of course it'll take hundreds. Use melee + Shotgun. Tier 5 POIs take approx 500 Shotgun rounds, which is far more economical than using 7mm.

[Ghostlight]

If you know they will be there you setup your raid fitting to that situation and even if they would place 500 in a poi i would not care.

 

 

So....are you complaining or not?

[Royal Deluxe]

I play death is death and i wear only light armor.

Using the shotgun nearlky killed me 3 times.

 

So no more Shotgun in tight pois

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

So....are you complaining or not?

 

I say the current system dont work in my opinion.

I dont say that i cant handle it.

I say that handling it, is tedious and after this game (when i first time after 964 hours in A17 did the quests and so lategame pois)

i will never again raid a lategame poi.

[Ghostlight]

I say the current system dont work in my opinion.

I dont say that i cant handle it.

 

So you think it is broken yet you can handle it??? Confusing.

 

i will never again raid a lategame poi.

 

What else is there to do? Player gets maxed out on day 30 / 40. The only late game left after that is to continually increase your gamestage and see if you are up for the challenge. That's the whole point. Tier 5 quests in tier 5 POIs is part of that challenge.

 

I see the shotgun as the only viable weapon for POIs. AK uses too much ammo to be economical and SMG lacks the firepower. My friend clears POIs with a Magnum while fully specced for Pistols and says it's fine but I have never used one, so no idea.

[Royal Deluxe]

So you think it is broken but you can handle it??? Confusing.

...

What else is there to do?

Play a other game. (Well, maybe i mod it)

 

And i have enough to do, still need 298 000 Steel ingots for my next base

[Katitof]

Game is not punishing you for leveling up.

 

Game is punishing you for level grinding if you're not prepared to face harder challenge.

[Foxley]

I went with int + strengt + fortitude + some agility (I had to do int since I was the most active player from our group ..). There was a more challenging part from around 60-100, but I liked that. From lvl 120 I was a terminator with my steel armor and meele weapon. Later on I switched to medium armor, since I got bored. Still running with medium armor + meele weapon (I do 90% melee kills). I switched to machete some time ago since I has lower reach so its a bit harder - now I have to avoid dmg from zombies while killing them in meele with short reach, its fun .

[Hek Harris]

Irradiated zombies are exactly like regular ones. They're just easier to spot thanks to their glowing hability.

Don't shoot, I'm kidding - just to put some oil on the fire.

[RipClaw]

Game is not punishing you for leveling up.

 

Game is punishing you for level grinding if you're not prepared to face harder challenge.

 

You can't really stop yourself from moving up the level at all. I did the last 2-3 levels just by mining iron and stone in a mine. And I didn't want to go up in the level but just gather materials.

 

And if you are a single player then you are forced to distribute the points more than if you play on a server and can specialize.

[Foxley]

They are aren't they? Anyway, this should be kinda solved by 17.2 where you will be able to adjust zombie dmg to player/blocks. So you could decrease it to 75% or 50% - this option + game difficulty is gonna be a great choice to set up the game how we like it. I am gonna play on normal difficulty (since I dont like shooting 30 bullets in some Z's face to kill him) and increased zombie dmg (probably somewhere around 150%).

[Foxley]

Also you can adjust it right now changing gamestages.xml located at Steam\steamapps\common\7 Days To Die\Data\Config\gamestages.xml using text editor.

 

So you can for example lower the difficulty bonus so you would get less iradiated zombies, they would come later on when you will be ready for them. Game will have same difficulty but less iradiated zombies. Should work well. Just make sure to backup original file just in case.

 

<gamestages>

<config

daysAliveChangeWhenKilled="2"

 

scavengerGameDifficultyBonus="1.0"

adventurerGameDifficultyBonus="1.2"

nomadGameDifficultyBonus="1.5"

warriorGameDifficultyBonus="1.7"

survivalistGameDifficultyBonus="2.0"

insaneGameDifficultyBonus="2.5"

 

startingWeight ="1"

diminishingReturns ="0.2"

 

For example if you are playing nomad you could just change line nomadGameDifficultyBonus="1.5" to a lower number (like 1.2, or even lower).

 

Gamestage is calculated gameStage = ( playerLevel + daysSurvived ) * gameDifficultyMultiplier

With lower gamestage you will get more standard zombies and less radiated ones.

[RipClaw]

I play default difficulty level and have played since A15. In A16, game already felt like it was punishing me for levelling up. However, by the time I got steel armor and tools, I was pretty comfortable looting and raiding POIs. Sure there was an occasional irradiated zombie or two, but most of the time I could snipe the sleepers from far away.

 

In A17, I just hit level 80 with game stage > 200, still don't have steel armor, have steel tools, and am running into irradiated zombies all the time in POIs. I attempted a fetch quest in bear den, and what I believe to be 5 irradiated wights came out and destroyed me instantaneously. The game seems to be moving in the RPG direction with attributes and perks. However, in RPG games, the player gets stronger, not weaker as the game progresses. Even in games with level scaling like Oblivion and Skyrim, even though bandits run around with full daedric armor, you're strong enough to kill them, and you can loot their armor afterward.

 

I can relate to that. I play as a single player and have to scatter my points accordingly. The first time I was on a radioactive zombie he killed me pretty fast and then again when I wanted to get my backpack back.

 

In the meantime I have improved my equipment and could also put points into melee so that I am better prepared. Nevertheless the radioactive zombies remain a challenge for me because I am not the best fighter.

 

Sneaking through a dungeon is practically impossible at this point. Even if you have all points in the stealth perks. That's why I've gotten into the habit of not following the path the developers suggest, but rather hitting my way through the walls and then luring the zombies outside. This gives me more freedom of movement. I also always leave a escape route open and mark the exits with wooden frames so I don't panic and take the wrong door.

[themirror]

Game is not punishing you for leveling up.

 

Game is punishing you for level grinding if you're not prepared to face harder challenge.

 

not so fast buddy... a few things needs a balance in the gamestage... i'm on day 42 and simply dropped out the save because on my last blood moon i've spent 500+ ak bullets because there is no regular or feral Z's, just radiated ones (and my AK is with semi auto mod and rad remover).

 

As soon as the blood mon ended I've go to the trader to get a quest. On the quest POI on the 3rd room there is 15 radiated zombies waiting for me...

[Rynor]

Better balancing of the game stage would be good. At some point it's just all irradiated zombies.

I run a server that I play with along with a few friends, recently I added a simple mod to keep the zombies in check.

 

Mod for gamestages.xml:

 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<configs>

<remove xpath="//gamestage[@stage>'130']" />

</configs>

 

This basically caps the gamestage to 130. It seems good to me like this but if you want a bit more challenge I believe the sweet spot is somewhere between 130 and 150.

[icehot]

All I can see so far from people in this thread is that you're all trying to do stuff your character either doesn't have the correct perks to do, and/or you don't have the correct gear, or you've not adapted your base to deal with your current level enough, I'm on day 150 odd now (can't remember the exact day) and I'm spending around 50 bullets, 200 arrows, and the rest is melee on horde night. My gamestage is so much higher, where there's nothing but green zombies everywhere you go, and it's fine.

 

I did go through a stage around day 50 or so, where I was focusing so much on intellect to get all the cool toys to play with, that my character wasn't strong enough to do quests, so I levelled up in other ways and focussed on strength and fortitude - and what do you know? The quests are simple now - even being surrounded by 20 radiated whites isn't much of an issue anymore.

 

Also stop rushing to gain levels, take your time, it's easier that way.