Early game difficulty

[Onarr]

Ok so I was looking forward to playing alpha 20 but first two times I started a new game I just rage quited. First time quest send me into T1 POI that ends with you jumping down into a trap room where you have no chance of surviving - 3 zombies and all i had for this first house was a club and a bow. Pretty @%$#ty early game design.

Second rage quit was encountering wolf in first 15 minutes of the game, that just completely obliterated me.

SO third time I managed to make it into the night and my hidey hole was under constant attack by zombies and wolves all night. Could not defend it cause a @%$#ing direwolf spawned, ripped through everything and owned my butt.

Seriously WTF?

Edit: So as soon as I wrote this, I ran around trailer and got eaten by a @%$#ing dog. So as I understand it, early game I have no proper weapons to defend myself and enemies I cannot defeat. Great, so the gameplay now consist of me running away from dogs and wolves during the day, and cowering in dark corner whole night withou doing anything. Fun

Edited December 21, 2021 by Onarr (see edit history)

[icedsun]

I've got my difficulty cranked to max and got my butt handed to me for the first few days. Basic strategy at that point is to run away from most things and only fight zombies you can get by themselves during the day. Don't bother doing quests until you're able to actually handle it. And if you're having trouble with zombies in your base at night, you must have a big heatmap being generated. Turn off anything making light/heat and stay crouched.

 

I like the brutal difficulty, but that's just me.  You are definitely right that starting difficulty in A20 is really tough.

[Mahnogard]

On one of my A20 starts, I got to the first trader only to see a wolf guarding the front gate. So I picked up some rocks and used those to bait a nearby Darlene into the wolf's range, and stuck some stone arrows into the wolf's butt while it was fighting the zombie. Wolf killed zombie, but wolf was almost dead so I only needed to boop it on the nose with my club to finish it off.

[unholyjoe]

yes the first couple days can and should be tougher (it is not impossible tho), my daughter and i just started another new game and our food was a mess until we got a grill... then she could make better food while i was building base, then we take a break and loot a couple pois (not quest), we arent going to do any quests in this playtest this time.

 

does leveling slow down without quest (yeah) but.. with us both building hunting and looting... we now have a base (cobblestone reinforced and not even bm yet in fact only at day 5.

 

there are other players who will laugh that we are not further along but hey.. keep it to your selves as we are playing this time to enjoy and not push it to the limits where we are bored.

 

put the points in to the places that help us with health, food/water, stamina regen and now things are smoothing out.

 

so is game harder... ehh maybe and maybe not.. its all about trying different things and not always playing the same old way as in the past.

 

as for pois with traps.. yes.. some are designed to be tougher then others and some arent regardless what tier it is. some like the difficulties and some dont.

 

we cant please everyone but i feel that the game now is about choice as NO a player is not forced to play a certain way and thats what i am testing with my daughter as she only gets a chance to play on weekends or if she has a day off of work so she is not a hard core gamer and she is adapting to a20.

 

this is just what i and my daughter have experienced so far.. and this time we are playing a simple 6k random map and feels very nice.

 

last tid bit and NOT to criticize anyone... (we do not min/max anything) we play to enjoy. hope others are enjoying game as well and yes we know its not going to be what everyone wants, no game is or they wouldnt be trying other games.

[Viktoriusiii]

Okay. So I play on insane with zombies always on either jog or springt (one speed slower than at night)

 

And I actually like this. I was able to do quests and even the vet didn't have a zombiedog early on.
 

So yes a traproom with no escape route is really brutal, but most traprooms do have a way out nowadays (which is great) you just need to run through the whole poi wakíng up every zombie on the way.

The direwolf spawn is known since A15 I think. I do not know why they do not fix this. 
They always spawn in the first 3 days. And if you already have a base... tough luck.

 

 

I generally like the ramped up difficulty. Although I think they often try to force difficulty through the wrong means ( losing 90 hunger a night when you are hurt is insane, especially on day 2-3)

You need to run away from zombies. That is a very good thing. Zombies are not meant to be XP piniatas. They are supposed to be a threat that is overcome by upgrading your gear.

If you can kill zombies easily with a wooden stick, why would you ever want to go out there and try and find better weapons?

On tip: The stone sledgehammer can help take care of single enemies. Watch your stamia and use strong attacks to knock them down and increase the distance.

[BFT2020]

Lots of good tips, here are some from me:

 

like unholyjoe stated, everyone plays differently.

 

I play SP, Survivalist difficulty, zombies jog during day (night is default), feral sense on with two mods that increase the zombies spawns by 2x and another that significantly increases the wandering horde frequency and size

 

This is how I approach early game:

 

Day 1 - Cancel the starter quests, gear up based on how I am playing (right now, I am favoring knives so I gear up with a club, stone axe, and bow until I find enough bones to make a bone knife - scrap the club and make a second knife as soon as possible as backup) - Head to the nearest town/city to find the trader and my first location to setup a temporary base.  I usually take a dig quest from the trader but don't start it yet.  I want to find my temporary base to get it ready for Night 1.  Always walking to conserve stamina and I don't go wild on looting to keep encumbrance down.  I typically put down a storage chest at the trader and dump everything in it that I don't need at this moment.  Once I find my temporary base, I clear it out and set it up (usually a roof top) so I can get up there but the zombies don't.  I typically will loot out an easy POI nearby (looking for basic items for early survival - food, first aid items, cooking pot and/or grill.

 

Any time you engage with zombies, head on a swivel (especially with Feral Sense).  Use the terrain to your advantage.  I will put obstacles between me and the Zs.  Don't engage until you run out of stamina, always keep some in reserve to disengage and regain stamina.  This is for outdoors.

 

For indoors, if an area looks blocked, I will not jump down in there at the beginning of my playthrough.  If it is just a POI I am raiding, I will skip it for now and come back later.  If it is part of a mission, I will back off and make my own entrance (or wake up the Zs and let them help me open up a new route).  Then I make them come to me and fight them under my terms, not inside an enclosed room.

 

Initially at night, do nothing.  Find a dark corner on top of your safe location, and just sit there all night listening to the zombies move around you and the wolves howl.  If they don't detect you, you have nothing to fight.  If you can safely engage a dire wolf at night, do so.  But realize that a dire wolf has 750 hp which will require a lot of stone arrows to take down.  Wait a few minutes in the morning before leaving your base to allow time for the dire wolf to despawn if you see one or heard of any nearby.

 

Regarding dogs, don't engage them until you can make a few pipe weapons and have the ammo for them.  If you see doghouses, skip those POIs.  If you hear a growl, run away quickly.  I went around a POI to avoid the doghouse I saw but I triggered the sleeper and heard the dog growl (this was morning of Day 2).  The only thing I did at that point was turn around and ran like heck.  I was able to find a safe location to get up high and away from the dog, and just pelt it with stone arrows until it died.

 

Forgot to add this

 

Be smart on your first perk choices.  Since I am using knives right now, my first perk choice is always Cardio.  I don't take Deep Cuts or anything else, I also save Sex Rex for later.

 

Since I need to stay mobile with the bone knife, the faster regeneration while I am running is more beneficial to me than Deep Cuts or Sex Rex as I am constantly rapidly changing my location after getting a few stabs in.

[Limdood]

dogs and wolves are a giant pain in the rear in this game, because they don't stun like zombies do.....but for the 3 zombies?  whack the first 2, the strongest 2, with a normal attack....headshot if you can, but anywhere is good to get them reacting....then power attack the third (should be the weakest) in the head to knock it down.  stagger the strongest again and knock the SECOND weakest one down.  stagger the strongest again and kill the standing up weakest one....by this time your next hit should probably knock down the strongest and its just a game of normal attack whack-a-mole between the 2 remaining as they stand.  

 

trick with multiple zombies is to occupy all of them, but focus fire the weakest ones down to reduce your targets....and keep moving...even if its only around the borders of a 5x5 trap room - you can have the standing zombies cross in front of the staggered zombies which delays the staggered ones getting to you to hit.

 

for dogs (and for false floor trap rooms to some extent), its a good idea to carry around 10+ wood frames....slap em down and get on top, then remove the path up (or just jump and place them under you).  Don't just make it a single block tower though...as soon as you're out of reach, aim at the ground and start widening your tower from the ground up so they can't just take out the 1 bottom block and kill you anyways (in a trap room, just pole upwards then get out of the trap)....now have fun times with your bow.

 

These aren't even really strategies that are "oh you just need to know how the game works" either....its basic strategy...for crowds, kill the weakest while keeping from getting swarmed.  For enemies faster/tougher than you, get out of reach (something other than running) or avoid them in the first place.

 

for birds....start swinging and pray.

[unholyjoe]

actually i just seen it for the first time last night with my daughter.. i cracked into a direwolf (wood club) and stunned it.. didnt have the buff list up as i wasnt testing as a tester i was playing for a change... but the damn thing stood there for 3 seconds with a "light  blinded deer" but after the stun he made up for it.

 

i do play with feral sense on but this time i turned it off as i wanted to see some of shawn's  tweaks in action and not influenced by other settings.

 

but my opinion and if others know the game... - starting new in ARK is a real killer and you DO NOT get a newb jacket at spawn, you DO NOT have a safe zone or safe time limit at spawn. many times on brand new character spawns i was eaten before i could forcibly wipe my brow.. so this game in my opinion again is far easier then ark. at first. they are all the same, once you catch on and learn from mistakes, you start to survive.

Edited December 21, 2021 by unholyjoe (see edit history)

[Mahnogard]

10 minutes ago, unholyjoe said:

starting new in ARK is a real killer

LOL This brings back memories of running down the beach being chased by a pack of Dilos. 

[ElCabong]

Turn off feral sense.

[Darthjake]

3 hours ago, Mahnogard said:

LOL This brings back memories of running down the beach being chased by a pack of Dilos. 

 

I *will* go out of my way to kill Dilo's now that I'm leveled up, *speech devolves into angry muttering.*

[Krougal]

This is all too many walls of text for me to read through but I do not even talk about nerfing wolf spawn. 

Once you get past the stage of them whipping your ass (after first horde for sure you should have yourself situated) they are the best source of meat in A20.

 

Day 36 I can count the amount of deer & pigs I've seen on 1 hand, rabbits are a hassle and give little meat, chickens slightly less hassle and give little meat. Bear...you don't want to poke the bear unless you've got an AK. Mountain lions? If you think wolves are bad, mountain lions will @%$# your @%$# up! Stay out of the snow noob!

I don't even know if Bobs Boars still a thing but I haven't seen it or even barns with pigs. That leaves wolves. Kill wolves, loot nests and buy eggs when the trader has them.  Bacon & eggs are your best early food.

 

It's been like this a lot longer than A20 though. Day 4/5 dog horde is a tradition. It sucks when they catch you flat-footed and unaware but you can outrun them and use terrain usually. Jump up on a car roof or other obstacle. Back pedal and club them to death. They seem really harsh but once you get used to it it becomes easy.

 

[ChickenWings]

13 hours ago, Onarr said:

Ok so I was looking forward to playing alpha 20 but first two times I started a new game I just rage quited. First time quest send me into T1 POI that ends with you jumping down into a trap room where you have no chance of surviving - 3 zombies and all i had for this first house was a club and a bow. Pretty @%$#ty early game design.

Second rage quit was encountering wolf in first 15 minutes of the game, that just completely obliterated me.

SO third time I managed to make it into the night and my hidey hole was under constant attack by zombies and wolves all night. Could not defend it cause a @%$#ing direwolf spawned, ripped through everything and owned my butt.

Seriously WTF?

Edit: So as soon as I wrote this, I ran around trailer and got eaten by a @%$#ing dog. So as I understand it, early game I have no proper weapons to defend myself and enemies I cannot defeat. Great, so the gameplay now consist of me running away from dogs and wolves during the day, and cowering in dark corner whole night withou doing anything. Fun

 

Yeah stay away from the dogs early on, make sure your stamina is high enough to outrun them, you need at least 50 I think.  I've gone into houses and if too busy with zombies get them to follow me and I'll outrun them a bit and circle back.   Use rocks to send roaming zombies/bears off in another direction.    If you get cornered you can chop yourself a new exit out if there's time, maybe put up a crate barrier to give yourself time.   Not sure why your hidey hole under attack at night, put a ladder up on the side of a house with a roof that has no access and boom you are good for the night.

 

I don't think you can just expect to go out looting at night early on, my early days are pretty busy at night getting organized for the next day.  Sometimes if coast is clear I'll go out for a while at night but always ready to run back to the ladder up to safety.  You have to pick and choose your battles early on, it's real easy to be so used to womping everything that early game can be a painful reminder of what a newb in 7 days is like.

[Slaasher]

I LOOOVE that it is more difficult. 

I have a real dog problem in all the games that I have started, wolves, dire wolves, packs of coyotes. It's been a real stress. 

My head is on a swivel constantly now. I do not give dogs a chance to attack me unless I have something between us like a hatch or some such and even then I have it reinforced. Otherwise I just avoid.

If there is one in a house I just move to a different house until i am better able to handle it.

My first 2 nights i just hunker down and turn all the lights off. Nothing bothers me in crouch mode then.

I have also found when I am exploring poi's in early game that I have to go a lot slower and check corners. I used to just barge around them and not worry what was there but Z's hit a lot harder now and caution is the new word of the day. Especially in the first 10 days or so.

Don't rage, just survive. 

There are ways to do it. Just not the way we used to.

[Krougal]

Another possibly overlooked strategy for early game, frequent suicide before level 6 because there is no penalty.

No food/water, no recipes and starving/dehydrated? Eat some glass.

Sprained leg and don't want to sit around on your ass for 20 minutes because you've got places to go and zeds to kill? Eat some glass.

Infected and no antibiotics/honey? Eat some glass.

You get the point. Cheesy? Very. Immersion-breaking? For sure. A hassle as well. Having trouble with early game supplies though this will help you get on your feet and you've got enough problems to deal with the first few days.

Of course now this will be nerfed.

 

So of course having I've had lots of animals the first few days on my A20 has gone stable restart. Day1 we found one. Remember if you see a doghouse in the yard, chances are a dog will spawn right in your face if you get close. Day 2 a wolf showed up at our door, fortunately the POI I was squatting in provided defensive options and he was a welcome load of meat.

 

Day 3 besides a wandering horde beating down my door at about 3AM, there was also a bear. Thankfully I chose a house with an attic and based in the attic. Still after the bear was done I had 2 health, infection, broken bones, laceration, concussion...so I ate some glass. Don't get me wrong though, I am thankful for all the meat delivered right to my door. Unfortunately it is now day4 which means dog horde and as I am level 7 it is no longer advisable to eat glass, so hopefully I don't run into them out in the open.

 

[DominionZA]

7 hours ago, Slaasher said:

I LOOOVE that it is more difficult. 

I have a real dog problem in all the games that I have started, wolves, dire wolves, packs of coyotes. It's been a real stress. 

My head is on a swivel constantly now. I do not give dogs a chance to attack me unless I have something between us like a hatch or some such and even then I have it reinforced. Otherwise I just avoid.

If there is one in a house I just move to a different house until i am better able to handle it.

My first 2 nights i just hunker down and turn all the lights off. Nothing bothers me in crouch mode then.

I have also found when I am exploring poi's in early game that I have to go a lot slower and check corners. I used to just barge around them and not worry what was there but Z's hit a lot harder now and caution is the new word of the day. Especially in the first 10 days or so.

Don't rage, just survive. 

There are ways to do it. Just not the way we used to.

Dogs are completely braindead in this game, especially ones placed in POIs

You can get up to them as close as 3 footsteps and they won't react in any way, not even to gunshots. Just standing idling. It's incredibly easy to sprint up and sledge them to death that way.

Animals have a very, very low range of vision and hearing. You can get even closer to boars without them reacting. I don't know what's up with the animals in this game.

[Ghostlight]

I got a Cop on day #1 last night. How the heck did that happen? (Was in a POI)

2 hours ago, DominionZA said:

You can get even closer to boars without them reacting. I don't know what's up with the animals in this game.

 

That is working as intended. Boars are pacifist unless you attack them. Dogs should attack on sight though (and they do attack me). Not sure why yours suck.

[DominionZA]

44 minutes ago, Ghostlight said:

I got a Cop on day #1 last night. How the heck did that happen? (Was in a POI)

 

That is working as intended. Boars are pacifist unless you attack them. Dogs should attack on sight though (and they do attack me). Not sure why yours suck.

Some boars immediatly attack you as part of an POI. Yes, they attack you when they see you. It is working as intended generally, but what I mean is their and the dogs detection ranges are extremely poor despite playing on feral mode, making them just XP piniatas and free meat. Dogs should be able to pick you up and hear at a much further range than normal zombies, something like a smelling system if you carry meat with you. I remember they had such one system back around in an early alpha or so

Edited December 22, 2021 by DominionZA (see edit history)

[Krougal]

I'm not sure they are working as intended, but it seems to be hit or miss.

Sometimes a dog in a POI will stand there like you said, other times they are on you.

Now the room boundary is a different thing altogether, like the little shed for instance that you can beat down the door and the dog inside just stands there if you don't go in. That is working as intended, or at least it is a side effect of an intentional game mechanic.

 

Dogs outside seem to work just fine though.

[JCrook1028]

4 hours ago, Krougal said:

Unfortunately it is now day4 which means dog horde

That's not a thing.... Hasn't been for a cpl years now. Yes there is a dog wandering horde but they are based on GS not what day it is.

[theFlu]

1 hour ago, JCrook1028 said:

Yes there is a dog wandering horde but they are based on GS not what day it is.

With the way the GS inches forward, it's pretty standard for a given player over the early game. Standard enough to land on a specific horde quite often. So, not necessarily a thing, but plausibly a repeated occurrence anyway.

[Krougal]

1 hour ago, JCrook1028 said:

That's not a thing.... Hasn't been for a cpl years now. Yes there is a dog wandering horde but they are based on GS not what day it is.

 

8 minutes ago, theFlu said:

With the way the GS inches forward, it's pretty standard for a given player over the early game. Standard enough to land on a specific horde quite often. So, not necessarily a thing, but plausibly a repeated occurrence anyway.

 

That would account for the fact that it seems to be a day early or a day late sometimes, but yeah, more or less it's still a thing.

I know they added some other hordes of more variety, but the dog and later dog & bear and then later it seems like dog, bear & vulture (or maybe it was 1 followed by the other) hordes are fairly weekly for me.

I haven't looked at the files lately, although I am about to since I am sick of desert & wasteland not being able to drive 10m without a vulture attack.

 

[Scyris]

On 12/21/2021 at 10:25 AM, Onarr said:

Ok so I was looking forward to playing alpha 20 but first two times I started a new game I just rage quited. First time quest send me into T1 POI that ends with you jumping down into a trap room where you have no chance of surviving - 3 zombies and all i had for this first house was a club and a bow. Pretty @%$#ty early game design.

Second rage quit was encountering wolf in first 15 minutes of the game, that just completely obliterated me.

SO third time I managed to make it into the night and my hidey hole was under constant attack by zombies and wolves all night. Could not defend it cause a @%$#ing direwolf spawned, ripped through everything and owned my butt.

Seriously WTF?

Edit: So as soon as I wrote this, I ran around trailer and got eaten by a @%$#ing dog. So as I understand it, early game I have no proper weapons to defend myself and enemies I cannot defeat. Great, so the gameplay now consist of me running away from dogs and wolves during the day, and cowering in dark corner whole night withou doing anything. Fun

 

Git Gud is all I can say. I kill ferals at night on day 1 with a wood club on warrior difficulty. 3 slow walking zombies should be cake. As for direwolves, when u run away from them zig-zag a bit however if your encumbered at all, your pretty much dead. I am also out questing at night on day 1. Meleeing/Using the bow to kill things. Expect the first night to be rough. As it seems wolfs and such spawn the first night at night. If I am not questing on night 1, I usually am working on my shack on stilts, so I am not on the ground for anything to get at me

Edited December 22, 2021 by Scyris (see edit history)

[warmer]

ya know I didnt have a single night attack till day 7 and I am pretty sure that is because I never use torches or candles at night. Kinda weird you got attacked at night day one. That almost never happens to me. Must be something specific you are doing to alert them.

[Scyris]

1 minute ago, warmer said:

ya know I didnt have a single night attack till day 7 and I am pretty sure that is because I never use torches or candles at night. Kinda weird you got attacked at night day one. That almost never happens to me. Must be something specific you are doing to alert them.

 

There is a Day 2 night vulture/wolf mini wandering horde that seemed pretty consistant in terms of showing up on day 2 at night. Learned that my first game in A20 exp and now I prepare for it.