What's a Reasonable End Goal for a No Trading/Quests/Loot Respawn Playthrough?

[Balkoth]

I've been doing a solo playthrough on difficulty five (Survivalist) without using traders, doing quests, or allowing loot respawn.  I'm on day 45 now and so far my only death has been to a pack of dogs on day 5.  But it seems like leveling is super slow at this point -- by the end of day 28 I was level 50 but then at the end of day 42 I was level 61.

To be clear, gaining three levels a day from base-building early on was probably too much but now it feels like it's shifted to the opposite end of the spectrum -- even at Intelligence 6 (Nerdy Goggles for 7) I'm looking at 12-16 days to get Steel.  And this is with no points in things like Shotguns or Heavy Armor in Strength, wanting to be able to craft a quality 5 AK-47 (another 5 levels so 7-10 days), no points in Perception, only one point in Flurry of Blows in Agility, etc.

On one hand, it feels like just focusing on Steel to be able to make things like Blade Traps, figuring out electricity, and gaining more XP from Horde Nights might be the best option...but I'd also really like to be able to get Heavy Armor and a quality 5 AK-47.  My problem isn't having to pick between those, my problem is looking at 25-34 more hours of play to get that.  Which again still leaves out Shotguns, rank 2/3 in Flurry of Blows, any points in other weapons like Bows/Magnums/Rifles, stuff like Salvage Operations/Pain Tolerance/etc., and so on.

 

I didn't mind relying on finding random stuff like mods, schematics, t6 items, weapon parts, etc as long as I was making constant level progression.  But admittedly the slow leveling is killing my enthusiasm.  And the longest previous playthrough I ever did was also to day 40ish I think so it felt like I'd be in the end-game now but I haven't even seen a wight or irradiated zombie on horde night yet.  I guess they're really stretching out the tail of this game compared to previous alphas (mostly played in the alpha 13-16 era and admittedly alpha 14 or 15 where you could get steel on like day 5 was way too fast of progression).

I don't know.  But I'm trying to figure out what an "end-goal" would even be for this playthrough -- at first it wasn't something I was worried about but like I said the slow leveling is now grating on me.  And I don't want to turn up the XP or something since that defeats the entire point of such a challenge!

So what are people's thoughts?

Playthrough is here for those interested:
 

 

[NekoPawtato]

If loot respawn is off and no quests are allowed, then that would mean finite resources, right?

What about finding the biggest city in your map with the goal being to clear every POI in the city? (I've never tried this so I don't know how big of an ordeal that would be). Maybe mark each building as you clear them to give you a sense of completion/progress.

 

Or since no quests are allowed, you could renovate buildings for fun. "Rebuild the city" in a sense.

[Rotor]

I mark the buildings, but it clutters the compass :/, so I stopped on my last playthrough.  I wish the sleeper would not respawn.  I dont use the trader except to sell stuff, but I cheated when it had a bycicle hehe.  I dont have a problem with RSS, but I am not playing hardest difficulty either.  I have also not bothered with horde base, mainly just upgrading a nearby PoI to where my lockers are.

 

Yes progress is slow, but I am not in a race.

 

My endgame (in my mind as I have yet to reach it) is to clean up the map.  My thought is I may get wandering hordes or run into Z here and there, but for the most part this part of the world I would eventually eradicate the Z population.

 

There are about 8 billion monkeys in this world.  In the end there can be only one :).  I wonder how high the zombie death counter go?

[BFT2020]

Maybe restore a neighborhood?  Once you got all the homes back in decent shape, that is the end of this playthrough.

 

Some players after awhile will change the BM frequency to every night to see how long they can last before dieing during the bm horde.  That is what I will typically do.  Play until I die during BM horde night, and lowering the frequency from 5 days to 1-2 days once it seems like they can't kill me.

[8_Hussars]

Some players use getting/crafting the gyro and/or clearing all T5 POIs (that are available) and/or spending time/fighting hordes in each biome.  

[John Black]

I’m on day 81 and also play with no traders and no loot respawn. Working vending machines replaced with broken ones but they drop candy and food when broken. Playing with improved hordes, no delay between spawns and upped the spawns per week. Biome GS & LS are tiered, pine is ~50-100(50LS), desert 120-220(100LS), snow 240-340(200LS) and wasteland 400(300LS) with increments depending on player level(as you can’t access base GS via xml). Harvest reduced between 75%-25% with 0% deduction in wasteland, harvest Xp negative 300%-0%. Improved auto shotty as I’m tired of M60 spam. Still only have a rank 1 shotty, probably picked up 8 x R6 M60s already :/. With tiered biomes BMs are an xp farm so on 30days.

 

All these settings are to motivate me to get to the wasteland, yet it allows me to play at my own pace and enjoy the game. The final goal would be to finish a BM on top of a skyscraper in the wasteland which also doubles as the RP LZ for extraction.

[Ramethzer0]

My opinion is with just under 2.5k hours sunk into this game with countless maps across multiple alpha stages is that no game ever plays the same.  Mileage always varies to some degree or another.

 

I stopped playing for a wee bit near the beginning because 99% of my time spent in game was all solo stuff and I found it infinitely better to play with friends on a shared server map, set with our own special settings.  We haven't had to put up mods yet, and for the time being we level quickly.. because in multiplayer you can opt in for shared experience so long as you maintain a certain range to your people.  I have a crew of anywhere between 4-5 people and we do quest progression and horde nights as a unit.   Rolling through the higher quest tiers virtually guarantees at least 1 level a night, with averaging around 3 for about 2 hours worth of play time, and on horde nights I put on nerdy glasses and lerning elixers for a hefty bonus of xp.

 

But, above all this, lemme say sometimes a play style needs to evolve and while I'm not sure what exactly you're asking for specifically.. you might consider changing your goalposts every now and then.  For instance, instead of just focusing on base work (because I've found that smaller are bases are way better for solo play, rather than large ones with gigantic footprints) Multiple group members means you can explore more diversity in your builds, and solo play means you can change your settings as you like to tailor the game to your particular needs.  For instance.. if you run a high end machine, consider running more zombie spawns and hordes that require less bullets to mash through, and set the XP according to the effort you actually put out in stopping them.  Altering those settings over time or just playing with them can visibly change how your playthroughs actually happen.  Or, perhaps give yourself certain win scenarios like some of those described above.

 

 I've got my personal settings pretty much figured out.  And for those that haven't managed to scope out what they personally prefer, there's a range of mods that can also dramatically change the scope and breadth of the game itself.  For instance, Romero mod is a beast and puts a deeper focus on nomadic survival over looting and building through the majority of the game.   You can also change settings to more of a rage virus 28 Days later kind of setting.  In all settings and scenarios, YOU have control over the meaty bits.  Don't be afraid to test things out and play around!

 

On 4/22/2022 at 5:50 PM, John Black said:

All these settings are to motivate me to get to the wasteland, yet it allows me to play at my own pace and enjoy the game. The final goal would be to finish a BM on top of a skyscraper in the wasteland which also doubles as the RP LZ for extraction.

 

Ooof.  Be prepared for the fight of your life.

[Rotor]

1 hour ago, Ramethzer0 said:

Romero mod is a beast and puts a deeper focus on nomadic survival over looting and building through the majority of the game.   

Ooof.  Be prepared for the fight of your life.

 

I have my eyes on that.  Dont want to try it yet until I experience the vanilla game to its fullest.

[Balkoth]

22 hours ago, NekoPawtato said:

If loot respawn is off and no quests are allowed, then that would mean finite resources, right?

What about finding the biggest city in your map with the goal being to clear every POI in the city? (I've never tried this so I don't know how big of an ordeal that would be). Maybe mark each building as you clear them to give you a sense of completion/progress.

 

Finite resources is the idea, yeah.  Can't just respawn PoIs with quests, come back a week later to loot the best stuff, or get unlimited resources from the traders.

Well, it took me until day 45 or so to clear a medium sized town I started near.  I managed to get a motorcycle in the high 30s I think and explored around a bit, finding a bigger city nearby...but that might take me until day 100+ of going building by building just looting.  Which would be fine and dandy if I was still progressing XP wise but feels like a dull grind without that.

 

22 hours ago, Rotor said:

I mark the buildings, but it clutters the compass :/, so I stopped on my last playthrough.  I wish the sleeper would not respawn.

 

Yeah, it definitely clutters the compass, wish there was a way to not do that.  And yeah, sleepers respawn in the already looted houses

 

22 hours ago, BFT2020 said:

Maybe restore a neighborhood?  Once you got all the homes back in decent shape, that is the end of this playthrough.

 

Some players after awhile will change the BM frequency to every night to see how long they can last before dieing during the bm horde.  That is what I will typically do.  Play until I die during BM horde night, and lowering the frequency from 5 days to 1-2 days once it seems like they can't kill me.

How are we defining restore?  Like build them back with nice glass and furniture or something?

 

Right now, unless something drastic changes (which it might), I could last quite a few horde nights.  I have like 10k+ rounds of both .762 and shotgun ammo.  So far I haven't even lost a single block on my horde base, which is basically a big brick with layers of iron spikes outside it, nothing fancy.  If radiated zombies or other things start showing up then that could change, but so far I've *gained* ammo and resources from each horde night I think.

 

20 hours ago, 8_Hussars said:

Some players use getting/crafting the gyro and/or clearing all T5 POIs (that are available) and/or spending time/fighting hordes in each biome.  

 

So I could beeline max int and have the gyro by maybe day 60-70 I guess?  Or faster if I power level via crafting.  Seems weird to have max int be a goal but not max any other stat.

17 hours ago, John Black said:

All these settings are to motivate me to get to the wasteland, yet it allows me to play at my own pace and enjoy the game. The final goal would be to finish a BM on top of a skyscraper in the wasteland which also doubles as the RP LZ for extraction.

 

Are wastelands guaranteed on all RNG maps?  What makes building a BM base on top of a skycraper significantly worse than a normal BM base?  If anything I'd worry the zombies would spawn on the ground and not get to the top easily....

 

16 hours ago, Ramethzer0 said:

But, above all this, lemme say sometimes a play style needs to evolve and while I'm not sure what exactly you're asking for specifically.. you might consider changing your goalposts every now and then.

 

I'm trying to figure out goalposts

 

Originally I figured I'd be finishing in the day 40-50 range having "proven" this can be done without a problem...but I also thought I'd have electricity and steel and end game zombies and everything.  But as of day 45 or so I don't have any of those (despite being level 60+).  Which is making me reevaluate things especially given how slow leveling has gotten (a level every two days roughly) -- slow grindy progression coupled with an end goal that looks much further away than anticipated is making me think things over.

[Rotor]

5 minutes ago, Balkoth said:

 

 

Originally I figured I'd be finishing in the day 40-50 range having "proven" this can be done without a problem...but I also thought I'd have electricity and steel and end game zombies and everything.  But as of day 45 or so I don't have any of those (despite being level 60+).  Which is making me reevaluate things especially given how slow leveling has gotten (a level every two days roughly) -- slow grindy progression coupled with an end goal that looks much further away than anticipated is making me think things over.

 

 

This is key and where you may be getting hung up.  Just going to speak to my preference and personal opinion to perhaps illustrate.  I play to survive.  Since I am fairly new I have yet to get to anywhere close to experiencing everything, but again I am not racing.  Currently I am LvL 12 GS 28 Day 39....and just got a bicycle. 

 

I play to survive and explore, leveling just comes as a side note.  IMO character leveling a lot of times detracts from game's environment.  No knocking 7D2D here.  Just a general note in my gaming experience.  It's been that way for me since SWG made a switch from skill sets to character leveling :).

 

Currently still cleaning up the town I spawned near.  Medium size, definatly not a metropolis.  Halfway there, unfortunatly due to the sleeper respawn I feel meh.  I believe I've read that they respawn every 30 days even if you have loot off.  So I set loot at 30 days.  I would set it off if the Zs wouldnt come back.  But if I gotta take a chance in a PoI after 30 days (I.e. night before RTB, etc), then I want something for it.

 

I play in a 10k RWG which has fairly good spread of the Biomes, still havent made it out of the forest, but in no rush to do so, since I have only explored half of hte forest.  With a bike now exploration should be quicker.

 

Now I've been playing this map since getting this game back in 12/2021 and play dead is dead.  So, I know a few PoIs in the forest, but frankly usually I forget what I did last week...at my age :).  So it is like knew, but once I am in it I remember some details and work my way through them a bit quicker.  

 

Anyways, just rambling.

[pApA^LeGBa]

Put up a sign on houses you have already looted. Or simply put a block somewhere at the entrance. That´s what i used to do in my SP.

 

One of your goals could be to see how you hold up against a horde once demolishers start to appear. And ofc you can always crank up the number of zombies at hordenight if you haven´t already. That definitly helps with getting XP.

 

If you use traps during bloodmoon, it could be a challenge to have a base that doesn´t use any.

[Jinx_DG]

Max Character Level is 300. Demo's don't start showing up in horde nights until Lv150ish(?) If I'm remembering correctly.  You are no where near "End Game" if taking the first two sentences into consideration. With that said though, your "End Game" is what you make it. *shrugs* 

 

Your current playstyle is geared towards slow progression. From what you've described your play through seems to be progressing as intended, BUT the unintended reality of the style made itself known. I've had this happen to me. What sounds good on paper and thought, executes differently when implemented. For me it was the challenge of finding schematics instead of using skill perks. My personality did not play well with this idea. 

 

If you're finding yourself wanting the play through to be finished, or find yourself not enjoying it as you did in the beginning consider changing the settings to help facilitated your "end game" idea. Doing this in no way invalidates your original concept. It may help you keep going for that long haul. 

 

You've learned something about your personal game limitations, which is sometimes difficult to accept, I know.  Sometimes it's not about you vs the game, but you vs what you're willing to do or not do. I wish you the best in getting to your "end game". Let us know what you decide and how it went. 

[MikeyUK]

On 4/23/2022 at 5:41 PM, Balkoth said:

Yeah, it definitely clutters the compass, wish there was a way to not do that.  And yeah, sleepers respawn in the already looted houses

 

This small and simple mod seems right up your street!  Simply turns off sleepers in looted houses.

https://7daystodiemods.com/stay-clear-no-sleeper-respawn/

 

When you have finished your vanilla playthrough I suggest you try an overhaul mod, specifically one like Undead Legacy - https://ul.subquake.com/ but play it with default settings   Should give you at least 40 hours, more likely a few 100 to get into endgame

 

Good luck and enjoy the game.

[John Black]

I originally planned on posting the link but it slipped my mind.

https://7daystodiemods.com/declutter-compass-mod/

 

Still works fine in A20.