A little peak of enthusiasm, but then a steep fall into disappointment...

[Hollowprime]

Everybody says archery is worthless due to day 1 bow. Just deal until you find a good bow or even better a crossbow. Early game, its your silenced weapon. Late game, explosive bolts are better than even frag rockets. They do not damage blocks, and fire immediately (grenades are not so great at night when Z are running everywhere). 70 explosive bolts can take out an entire horde.

 

Archery is the shizz.

 

I was testing a game with 20 active zombies. I had to use 3~4 explosive bolts/arrows per horde. They do damage blocks but at minimum amounts. I am not very sure how good they are though. Perhaps it's because I wasn't using mods on each bow...

[White-Gandalf]

After the first week, the problems with feathers go away, of course, let alone by riding the roofs of POIs or by occasional vulture visits.

 

My balance shift recommendation only refers to the initial days, mainly the first two, where you have multiple pressing knapsack problems to solve. And it applies to newcomers, mainly. As soon as you adapt to the circumstances (as for example with a dedicated hunting and searching party, or if you know the right roofs of the right buildings), the problem gets alleviated.

 

The entry into the game - the first few days - should be tailored for newcomers at normal difficulty levels. Hardcore enthusiasts should be able to change their difficulty level by options at game start. As far as i remember (till Alpha 13), this was always the case. I, too, made a playthrough on Alpha 15 with loot abundance set to 25%. That gave nearly the same loot regarding feathers as is now the default case with A18.

 

I'm not able to see that the funpimps wanted the overall game difficulty set higher: The same time they bolstered the gun ammo found in loot to a multitude of what was normal the versions before. IF you have fun using guns, this surely will make the game a lot easier for you.

 

What i do is: I have the impression that the funpimps somehow wanted to mimic the rules of some popular mods, where guns and ammo loot are by far overpowered in relation to bows.

 

While i can live with that -at least after some adaption to it -, i think newcomers should be taken into account by balancing.