What am I doing wrong?

[Krougal]

37 minutes ago, Survior said:

What a LOT of you are saying is that WEAPONS_SKILLS_N_STATs  is the only way to play now, and that sounds super lame.

Combat being central to the game it's only natural.

What do you expect it to be?

 

[8_Hussars]

5 hours ago, Survior said:

What a LOT of you are saying is that WEAPONS_SKILLS_N_STATs  is the only way to play now, and that sounds super lame.

Maybe, but you can play however you want.  Many players spec weapon skills first; many spec survival skills first, and many spec around what they loot.  For myself its rare to spec a weapon past the first point before 25-40 skill points.

What I think is lame is the suggestion that there is only one way to play... 

[Darklegend222]

Put one point into "cardio" so you can nearly run forever. Outrunning bears and wolves has never been easier, especially at night time. Just have to wear cloth armor and not be any form of encumbered that way you have the fastest movement speed possible.

 

Learn to cheese doors and other blocks. I personally build doors in a 3x2 for the bases I build, not the POIs I'm clearing. The middle 2 blocks are a door, the walls beside the doors are poles with the angled base. It makes it so I can shoot out and melee all without being hit or risking creatures waddling through the gap. Repair the door and blocks when they takes damage the best you can.

 

Don't take over any POIs on day 1 unless you're sure it's a tier one. Otherwise you'll get dogs and ferals some of the time, which is just enough to kill you before you have guns.

 

If you're unsure if it's a tier 1, build a base on stilts 4 blocks high. Then build a bridge about 9 blocks out from the door, with a ramp leading to the bridge. That way zombies are forced to path to a cheesed door. It's a tower defense game, build a tower and defend it for the night!

 

Dark Souls is a time-based game where you simply dodge and parry at the right times or die in 2-3 hits, this is not Dark Souls. You can't outrun your enemies in Dark Souls lest you want to die tired. You can outrun wolves (both dire and non-dire) along with both bear types. Don't be afraid to kite a bear away from home then take the wide way back with being seen.

 

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't struggling at times myself. It's a very combat heavy game now so buff combat perks. I find pipe shotguns and their ammo most abundant so I keep 3-4 on my hotbar, it's the only way to live if you're cornered. Unless you have a pipe machine and ammo for it. In which case you don't need multiple pipe shotguns or other types of guns.

 

With all that said, these are not nearly the only ways to play. These are how I've adapted my playstyle so far. It's going back to being the easiest game ever, but slowly. You just have to learn the ins and outs of weapons and go from there. They give us so much ammo in quests, 80-100 most of the time. You can't be stingy with it when you need it to survive.

 

The main reason why A20 is so challenging, is because every single new POI has a trap with at least 3-5 zombies that don't make ANY noise. So it's literally impossible to know they're there at times. It's incredibly irritating more than anything else. I'm popping a bandage nearly every POI unless I get a weapon.

 

Get better at nerdpoling upwards when you're forced to fall into a room from the ceiling. Or to run away and throw a hatch down in front of a door, then place a 1/2 block above it. Until every POI can be properly balanced this is what we've gotta do. I didn't have to do this method since A18, but it's making a comeback in this alpha.

 

Balancing combat is this games heaviest weak point by far. They created trap POIs to prevent stealth and make them far more difficult to get through. Even a zombie in a 8x8 room can be a challenge. Especially if they decide to go on their hands/knees then back up instantly so it's virtually impossible to hit their heads while being hit 2-3 blocks away.

 

You have to throw off the imbalance by door cheesing, falling trap cheesing, and hotbar cheesing by having multiples of the same weapons on the hotbar. The pipe weapons themselves would've helped the balance in A19.6 very perfectly, then they added more zombies, more traps, and tons of ammo. Now it's needed to have multiple pipe weapons instead of just one.

 

 

[Survior]

9 hours ago, Darklegend222 said:

 

 

 

I agree with cheese and nerd polling and stuff like that things get easier, I thought part of the hype for 20 was that wasn't going to be the meta, but as always it really is, it seems strange to me that success in so many video games and what difficulty you play at is how much cheese you are willing to slice.

 

 

[Cobretti_]

2 hours ago, Survior said:

 

I agree with cheese and nerd polling and stuff like that things get easier, I thought part of the hype for 20 was that wasn't going to be the meta, but as always it really is, it seems strange to me that success in so many video games and what difficulty you play at is how much cheese you are willing to slice.

 

 

 

I would like to think that a lot of players are not nerd polling or cheesing mission POI's. It would be a shame as I have so much fun on the edge on my seat clearing POI's that cheesing them would just kill the game for me but that's probably why I see some people post that they play max difficulty and are bored and have everything by day 30.

 

As for your problem specifically, the first step I do when setting up my base on day 1 is to make every 2 block doorway into my base as 1 block which I need to actively defend and repair while killing anything that attacks. If you want to call that cheese then I don't know how I am supposed to play a tower defence game without actually having any defences. It will stop the week 1 deaths, allow you to make noise and you will be happy for those wolves, free meat.

[Survior]

37 minutes ago, Cobretti_ said:

As for your problem specifically, the first step I do when setting up my base on day 1 is to make every 2 block doorway into my base as 1 block which I need to actively defend and repair while killing anything that attacks. If you want to call that cheese then I don't know how I am supposed to play a tower defence game without actually having any defences. It will stop the week 1 deaths, allow you to make noise and you will be happy for those wolves, free meat.

This is good advice and was something I figured out after the fact. Wasn't really expecting the army of bears in particular.

[RipClaw]

1 hour ago, Cobretti_ said:

I would like to think that a lot of players are not nerd polling or cheesing mission POI's. It would be a shame as I have so much fun on the edge on my seat clearing POI's that cheesing them would just kill the game for me but that's probably why I see some people post that they play max difficulty and are bored and have everything by day 30.

Funnily enough, it's the same players who whine that they can't find good weapons in the early game and that they can't fight the zombies at all without guns.

 

Also, many players quit before the really difficult hordes come. Most permatdeath players have probably never seen a demolisher because it shows up at a gamestage above 150, but they are dead long before that.

[Lenny Lettuce Lips]

I've noticed this too. Back in previous alphas we were basically untouchable, especially once we knew which POI's to start clearing in the early game between jobs (often doing them at night even between jobs/trader hours). All stock difficulty, no modifiers. 

 

A20 is much more difficult, here's what I've noticed:

 

- increase in critical modifiers i.e. broken leg, infection, especially infection, things like that. 

- increase in animal health/armour. Bears are obscene now, we avoid them like the plague. 

- zombie "trap" events.

- feral sense overall. I don't know if that's what is contributing to our base frequently being visited at night, but it's not so bad. I can see how this is difficult early game.

 

 I agree with others that spending at least a couple points in any one specific weapon skill is a must now. Bows seem to be the most rewarding if you demand economy and results. Crossbows are almost OP. 

 

Personal taste though, I don't mind the game being a little more risky myself. After a while we started giving ourselves challenges in A19 because we were just good at it. Now it's challenging as is. We haven't even been to the Wastelands yet, wish me luck...

[Mahnogard]

21 hours ago, 8_Hussars said:

Maybe, but you can play however you want.  Many players spec weapon skills first; many spec survival skills first, and many spec around what they loot.  For myself its rare to spec a weapon past the first point before 25-40 skill points.

 

Last night on my new save, I used my first 5 points to get Parkour 2 for the soul purpose of being able to jump higher and find out what was in Rekt's upstairs room. Spoiler alert - he's a slob.

[meganoth]

1 hour ago, Lenny Lettuce Lips said:

I've noticed this too. Back in previous alphas we were basically untouchable, especially once we knew which POI's to start clearing in the early game between jobs (often doing them at night even between jobs/trader hours). All stock difficulty, no modifiers. 

 

A20 is much more difficult, here's what I've noticed:

 

- increase in critical modifiers i.e. broken leg, infection, especially infection, things like that. 

- increase in animal health/armour. Bears are obscene now, we avoid them like the plague. 

- zombie "trap" events.

- feral sense overall. I don't know if that's what is contributing to our base frequently being visited at night, but it's not so bad. I can see how this is difficult early game.

 

 I agree with others that spending at least a couple points in any one specific weapon skill is a must now. Bows seem to be the most rewarding if you demand economy and results. Crossbows are almost OP. 

 

Personal taste though, I don't mind the game being a little more risky myself. After a while we started giving ourselves challenges in A19 because we were just good at it. Now it's challenging as is. We haven't even been to the Wastelands yet, wish me luck...

 

You probably will have some fun there. I went there for a digging quest and a tier4 POI quest inside a town around day 50 and had to return to base after the dig quest for more ammo. Then the tier4 quest, it was one of the most intensive half hours I had in this game.

 

But it also reminded me of the fact that the game only works if you really have limited ammo, if I had sprayed ammo like there is no tomorrow it would have been just another day at the office.

 

[Lenny Lettuce Lips]

7 hours ago, meganoth said:

 

You probably will have some fun there. I went there for a digging quest and a tier4 POI quest inside a town around day 50 and had to return to base after the dig quest for more ammo. Then the tier4 quest, it was one of the most intensive half hours I had in this game.

 

But it also reminded me of the fact that the game only works if you really have limited ammo, if I had sprayed ammo like there is no tomorrow it would have been just another day at the office.

 

I posted a while back about ammo being almost too abundant and I figured out the why... We've had our loot on max and I think that's probably inflating our numbers. Oops. 

Ammo in A19 was almost the perfect balance. You'd find some, quest rewards gave you a good amount (sometimes) and it wasn't too hard to make. I kind of like more, but the challenge is definitely there with less. Even with more ammo we've still been struggling, that's saying something. 

[GreenGril76]

On 12/29/2021 at 3:13 AM, Survior said:

During alpha 19 my longest play though was like 150 days and had 7-ish deaths. Now in alpha 20 I've died 7 times in 5 days, I don't even get 7 days to die. I took over a house at the edge of a farming town, I've never built a campfire and I don't have any torches and even if I don't move,  still, my base it attacked every night. It's usually zombies, but once it was 2 brown bears, once it was a single brown bear another time it was a black wolf and yet another time it was five smaller dogs/wolves. Mind you I'm only on day 5.  That house was also ridiculous to clear out as it contained 2 feral zombies on day1.

 

It is not really fun to know that you cannot avoid death (as in the case of the two brown bears that attacked me at 4am on the 3rd day), there wasn't really anything I could do, they take something like 50 stone arrows and 10 hits with a spear (both).

 

Additionally it seems everything was nerfed, farming, stumps, skills (need more, get less).

 

I'm concerned that the Funpimps are now designing their game balance around those people with over a thousand hours in who probably play dark soul games when they are not playing 7d2d otherwise the game is heavily skewed towards 4-8 man groups and single player efforts kind of suck.  I consider being able to build the basic stuff, farm the basic stuff, cook the basic stuff and craft the basic stuff while fighting with basic abilities to be early game, but now you need to a ton of levels.

 

Funpimps by all means make your game brutal on the highest settings to challenge groups of heavily experienced players, but don't forget the the casual players and new players who probably don't find spam deaths to be enjoyable or balanced on normal settings.

 

 

It was the Devs intention to "ramp up" A20. They stated that in theor livestreams, and I believe it was due to the previous feedback in the forums.

I've noticed that forest biomes are spawning bears and wolves again. They usually spawn in at dusk. I don't have trouble killing wolves and dogs with a club, but I was lucky enough to loot a pipe pistol early. Spiked traps will also help since they cause bleed damage.

They also made the boar hostile now, and pop out of hiding places as zombies do. I hate looting the farms now.

Spears are garbage, until you start reading the books and build/loot an iron one. They do slow down zombies if you jab them in the knees.

Those "nerfs" everyone keeps talking about, were just the removal of brain-dead mechanics that made the game easy. I don't agree with them, such as you don't always pull a plant from the ground ( potato ). 
You need to rely on looting and the wasteland book that improves your chance of find honey from any tree. I miss stabbing giant hornet heads and burning down hives for honey. 
Meds could due with a nerf. On a solo game, with looting and air drops, I'd have 3 storage boxes of meds by day 20. Trader Jen specializes in meds so that ain't bad.

Nah. The devs are making 7days more realistic, but are cutting corners in doing so. As with farming before, you don't always pull the plant out of the ground. Pumpkins, potatoes, and mushrooms should be replanted. Corn, coffee, and blueberries don't. The flowers depend on who and where they are grown. But, the FPs won't go with all these mechanics. So, you either replant or you don't. 
They won't let us have concrete by day 7, but we can loot blue5 items by day 6. Cooking should be under intelligence, instead of strength. The higher level traps, and now the drone, make it feel as if I'm playing a fallout game.

I love the game, but some of the devs decisions still don't make a lot of sense to me.

[Survior]

I don't believe that people are playing this game on it's hardest difficulties and not being challenged unless they are cheesing and exploiting tf out of it so I'm not really sure why the devs are insisting on nerfing everything for people on lower difficulty or insisting that a game be played in certain way, it's like they don't understand that the more ways people enjoy the game the greater the audience. (customers).

 

[Whorhay]

On 12/31/2021 at 2:54 AM, RipClaw said:

Also, many players quit before the really difficult hordes come. Most permatdeath players have probably never seen a demolisher because it shows up at a gamestage above 150, but they are dead long before that.

 

I usually play permadeath in my solo games and I frequently get bored before Demolishers show up, and roll a new world with another build. When I do stick it out long enough for Demo's to show up I tweak my base design and nothing really changes. I hate the bullet sponge method of increasing difficulty as even on Nomad zombies are tougher than they ought to be. Maybe my next re-roll I should force myself to start in the desert or something. My only deaths thus far in A20 have been once at the last room of a T5 when the game dumped 20+ zombies in my lap and it turned out that half a stack of ammo wasn't enough for a T5 anymore, and once early game when I was clearing a PoI at night with pipe weapons and had a wandering horde plus a direwolf come join the fun right as I engaged the zombies in the final room.