My Impressions of A18+Hints and tips I discovered.

[Scyris]

So I am coming up to my first horde night, still lack a base but this should be finnnnne, i'll find some roof to sit on to snipe at em from, or something. There is quite a lot of things I like in A18. I play on nomad, which imo is kinda too easy, so next game i'll most likely bump it to warrior. No idea why they set the default difficulty to adventurer myself, as Nomad is still quite easy past the first day or so.

 

I like the dynamic music, one of my biggest old complaints was the lack of music in the game, and this sort of solves it, I just wish it had more variation than it does.

 

I like how zombies are less annoying when banging on walls (they used to screech and make a ton of noise), they don't seem to make as much noise as they used to, and their aggro noises are noticable enough we don't have that ninja zombie problem we used to have, at least not anywhere near as bad, when a zombie aggros you/searching for a sound you made, you'll know it.

 

Graphically the game looks the best i've ever seen it, I'm impressed. Performance is much better too for me.

 

The thing I like the most? would have to be that schematics came back, you can learn to craft most things via schemtics instead of having to perk into things you do not want to. The downside is you have to wait a bit till you find it. I also love the anvil and adv bellows, it makes the forge craft and smelt things faster than i've ever seen it do it, drastically reduction the grind there.

 

Some weapons need to be balanced though, for example the stun baton's melee damage is imo far to low, and the junk turrent when placed is easly one of the most overpowered things i've seen in the game, due to the fact it can flinchlock anything, and thats with no perks in int at all. Its so OP I refuse to use it till the flinch is removed. Its damage per shot is fine, its just the stun/flinch lock has to go. when placed, its fine if when fired like a gun in your hand it does it.

 

Archery seems kinda useless now, I find more bullets than I do feathers that I just started using guns for ranged. Also with less zombies around using guns is less risky as you generally do not need to worry about uninvited guests from outside often at all.

 

Progression is imo a tad to slow for my liking in terms of leveling, its especially painful in single player as you have to invest in str somewhat at least to 3 for miner 69'er/motherload 3 for some decent block dmg/mining ability. As you have to depend on yourself for everything.

 

Haven't needed to perk into pack Mule, I have all but 3 slots unlocked via mods, I got lucky and found a triple storage pocket schematic quite early.

 

Overall other than some balance issues and some things that made me scratch my head asking "why?" a18 is a vast improvement over a17.

 

Now for some tips.

 

1: Get a hunting rifle, Its actually a damn good weapon now if you have a bandolier in your chest armor, the bandolier is 30% faster reload speed and it works for anything with a reload: guns, crossbow, bow etc. I have a tier 4 hunting rifle with 2 mods in it that hits for 102 damage, I have nothing in perception perks at all, I looted it. Actually any gun is generally very good now in the game, though the hunting rifle has seen the biggest boost IMO, as its gone from useless to one of my favorite guns. Marksman rifle would probally be better if you can find one. Unsure how SMG is never found one yet, but I heard its the agility guy/girls full auto weapon and it's gotten some buffs as well.

 

2: Due to the lower overall spawn using guns is much less risky than it used to be, as there is just no zombies around to lure to you. However excessive gunshots WILL still cause screamers so, yeah gotta watch out for that.

 

3: Get armor ASAP, padded armor made from cloth and Duct tape does not encumber you at all and it has 6 armor rating or so a piece crafted at tier 1. There is a huge difference. I currently have mostly leather armor on in my game with 1 padded armor legs, and my armor rating is 46. thats 46% damage reduction just from leather armor i've looted. It is Huge. in a17 armor didn't really seem to do much but it makes a massive difference in a18 even as I said the padded armor aka cloth armor is a huge diff.

 

4: if you want bones, feathers, rotten meat (for farm plots) go to the wasteland, vultures/dogs have a high spawn rate there and they are a great source of those 3 materials. If you let yourself stay below 75% health they'll also come to you like bee's to flowers in the case of the vultures.

 

5: Get the water purifier mod asap, stick it in your helm, then you can use murky water for hydration and never have to worry about dysentery ever again. Murky water stacks to 125, boiled water stacks to 10. Thats 200 water per stack for boiled or 1250 for murky if you have the water purifier mod. I literally toss boiled water on the floor or just drink it as I find it with the purifier mod in. This mod was pretty useless in a17, but in a18 its a lovely tool thats worth using.

 

6: Without perks its MUCH MUCH harder to sneak up to melee headshot things, zombies can hear better than ever before especially if you have armor on. However sleeper volumes now activate at a much closer distance so firing 1 gun shot won't aggro a entire floor anymore.

[merlinfire]

thanks for the info