Risk vs. Reward? Upping the difficulty level

[Apocalyptical Survivor]

I've found the game getting too easy so I've started to up the difficulty level to get more challenge. But I have some questions about how this works.

 

1) It doesn't appear that you get any better rewards from higher difficulties, is that the case? If so, I hope this changes. If you're going to take greater risk, you should get greater rewards.

 

2) Is stealth affected by this? I have my stealth perks maxed, I'm wearing military armor with mufflers and mobilizers, I'm always in sneak, I used a compound crossbow, yet now in the higher difficulties I seem to wake up more zombies than I ever did before. Coincidence, or is something affected by difficulty level?

 

3) Any other side effects of raising the difficulty level that I should be aware of?

 

Thanks for any insights or suggestions.

[Rotor]

I have read the only real change is zombies become a damage sponge.

[Maharin]

As I remember it...

 

Loot is based on game stage and modified by the world more recently.  There are biome modifiers currently so that the harder biomes (wasteland, snow, and desert) increase the effective game stage and therefore give you better loot.  There is/was talk of adding a modifier for POIs, too (but I'm not sure exactly how multiple modifiers will work, whether additive or multiplicative).

 

Keep in mind that "better" loot is subjective but it amounts to getting higher end gear (like steel versus iron weapons or armor, for instance) as well as higher end ammo (like AP ammo for guns).  Some things become far less likely to find in the late game and some things stop dropping at all.  Not everyone will be happy with the default settings.

 

As for stealth being affected game stage... sort of maybe?  As your game stage goes up you will get tougher versions of zombies spawning as least sometimes.  These tougher versions may have better stealth detection... but I'm not 100% certain that true.

[RipClaw]

The only thing that affects the difficulty setting is how much damage you do to the zombies and how much damage you get from the zombies. The difficulty setting used to affect the gamestage but that has not been the case for several alphas.

 

The default setting is Adventurer. You deal 150% damage to the zombies and they deal 75% damage to the player. On Nomad, both values are set to 100%. On Warrior, the zombies deal 150% damage and the player 83% damage.

 

The highest level is Insane. The zombies deal 250% damage and the player only 50% damage.

 

[Uncle Al]

I believe the other thing that difficultly affects is the chance of a zombie going into rage mode when taking damage.

 

There are a lot of settings other that the one labelled difficulty that will make the game harder.  Turning up baseline zombie run speeds, turning on feral sense and turning on delete all gear on death will all give you a harder game.

 

Increased risk vs reward doesn't work with difficultly settings.  If you give more loot on harder difficulties, they don't really become harder.  The game correctly separates the two so difficulty settings don't affect loot.

[Ray Garraty]

10 hours ago, Apocalyptical Survivor said:

If you're going to take greater risk, you should get greater rewards.

Set Loot Abundance to 200% => problem solved

[BFT2020]

Increasing the exp multiplier will advance loot stage faster as you will level up faster.  However, game stage will also accelerate which will make zombie spawns and bloodmoon increase faster.

 

You can also create a modlet to modify the bonus for the loot stage modifiers.  There are two files where you can edit xml values to adjust those - biomes and loot

 

biomes

<!--BIOMES.XML

A20 Biome Loot Modifier and Bonus
Biome Modifier A.K.A lootstage_modifier percentage added to the loot stage calculations
Pine Forest 0
Burnt Forest 0.5
Desert 0.5
Snow 1
Wasteland 1.5



Biome Bonus A.K.A. lootstage_bonus whole number added to the loot stage calculations
Pine Forest 0
Burnt Forest 10
Desert 10
Snow 20
Wasteland 30

-->



    <!-- Snow Main Biome -->
    <biome name="snow" topsoil_block="terrSnow" biomemapcolor="#FFFFFF" lootstage_modifier = "1" lootstage_bonus="20">

 

Modifier is a percentage so in this case, snow is doubled.  Bonus is a flat add so +20 to your loot stage bonus.

 

loot

<!-- *** POI_Loot_Stage_Modifier_And_Bonus_Settings -->
<loot_settings poi_tier_mod="0.05,0.1,0.15,0.2,0.25" poi_tier_bonus="3,6,9,12,15" />

 

mod is a percentage so 5% bonus in a Tier1 POI.  bonus is a flat add so +3 to your loot stage in a T1 POI.

11 hours ago, Maharin said:

Loot is based on game stage and modified by the world more recently.  There are biome modifiers currently so that the harder biomes (wasteland, snow, and desert) increase the effective game stage and therefore give you better loot.  There is/was talk of adding a modifier for POIs, too (but I'm not sure exactly how multiple modifiers will work, whether additive or multiplicative).

 

I believe the biome bonuses are added first (since that establishes your baseline) and then POI bonuses are calculated  I know this was discussed before, but hazy on the details.  Might try it out later on a game to see.

[Syphon583]

3 hours ago, Ray Garraty said:

Set Loot Abundance to 200% => problem solved

I've tried playing with loot abundance increased (was playing a no trader, so wanted to try and balance it a little), but as far as I could tell, loot abundance is exactly that. It was more loot. Not necessarily better loot.

[JCrook1028]

14 hours ago, Apocalyptical Survivor said:

I've found the game getting too easy so I've started to up the difficulty level to get more challenge. But I have some questions about how this works.

 

1) It doesn't appear that you get any better rewards from higher difficulties, is that the case? If so, I hope this changes. If you're going to take greater risk, you should get greater rewards.

Why would you want better rewards if the reason is that the game was too easy? Seems counter productive to me.

[Apocalyptical Survivor]

1 hour ago, JCrook1028 said:

Why would you want better rewards if the reason is that the game was too easy? Seems counter productive to me.

Counter productive? If you raise the risk of dying, it seems intuitive that you should be compensated in some way. In virtually every game the formula is: Greater risk = greater reward. The greater challenge may be sufficient compensation for some, but it's odd actually to not have greater rewards accompany greater risk. Not a showstopper for me, but I find it strange and I have seen videos where streamers continue to play on the default difficulty explicitly because they are not getting rewarded for playing on harder modes, so I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who's made this observation.

@BFT2020 Excellent response, thank you very much for that detailed information! 

[meganoth]

1 hour ago, Apocalyptical Survivor said:

Counter productive? If you raise the risk of dying, it seems intuitive that you should be compensated in some way.

 

That is a principle that should be true for different actions in the same game. You go into a tier5 instead of a tier1 POI, you risk more, you get more.

 

But when we talk about the difficulty setting you are not comparing two actions, you are comparing players and their qualities. And both those players have a desire to be challenged.

If you don't feel challenged at normal difficulty (for example because you can make headshots out of 50% of your shots) but another player is dying twice per week (because his shots just hope to hit the body somewhere), then you are taking a lesser risk than he is to die.

 

The problem is that if you get better loot as compensation your power level rises faster as well. Hence after a very short time you will not be challenged anymore again. You run around with Marksman Rifle while that other player still shoots with a mediocre AK and does much less damage per shot. In result you make less damage because of the difficulty setting but you make more damage because of marksman instead of ak

 

1 hour ago, Apocalyptical Survivor said:

In virtually every game the formula is: Greater risk = greater reward. The greater challenge may be sufficient compensation for some, but it's odd actually to not have greater rewards accompany greater risk. Not a showstopper for me, but I find it strange and I have seen videos where streamers continue to play on the default difficulty explicitly because they are not getting rewarded for playing on harder modes, so I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who's made this observation.

@BFT2020 Excellent response, thank you very much for that detailed information! 

 

 

Edited August 4, 2022 by meganoth (see edit history)

[BFT2020]

Difficulty is always subjective and based on a players preferences.

 

For me, the difficulty level really is not that difficult.  Sure, the relative HP of the zombies increase since your damage output is significantly reduced - solution - lots of bullets

Increase blood moon horde size - same solution, more bullets

 

I prefer increasing the struggle - taking longer to get better gear, using what you have

 

@KhaineGB has a couple of mods that he has released that changes the difficulty by making adjustments to the game mechanics

• Headshots only
• Wandering Horde Frequency

 

Khaine is also working on another one that removes XP from zombie kills so they only way you advanced in levels is by surviving the day (Do not die) - This is something that Roland did for previous Alphas but we never could get him motivated to update it for A20.  Thankfully, Khaine got tired of his laziness and decided he was going to do it himself.  😁

 

I would also recommend his Romero mod.  It removes the Blooodmoon hordes, but greatly up the wandering hordes.  It is an overhaul mod, but very close to vanilla (so you can add other modlets if you want).

 

There are more out there of course.  Some really good overhaul mods if you want to change up vanilla 7D2D.

[Syphon583]

37 minutes ago, BFT2020 said:

@KhaineGB has a couple of mods that he has released that changes the difficulty by making adjustments to the game mechanics

• Headshots only
• Wandering Horde Frequency

THIS.

 

My latest playthrough (warrior) has been focused on increased world spawns as well as increased wandering hordes (in number of zombies and frequency). I also have a mod that increases the damage dealt by enemies. Not only does the world feel more like a zombie apocalypse due to the amount of zombies, the challenge has been much greater and far more satisfying. I tried just simply changing the difficulty in the past, but to me, the number of enemies I have to deal with is far harder than how many hits they take to die.

[Rotor]

I havent done head shots only because that is level of hard I can deal with using just a bow hehe.  Specially with the wiggle wiggle zombie behavior.  But I agree it would definitely up the ante.  Specially if you up the amount of @%$#s coming at ya.

Edited August 5, 2022 by Rotor (see edit history)

[Ripflex]

The increased difficulty means you have to hit more often and waste more ammo for the same rewards.

 

[meganoth]

7 hours ago, Ripflex said:

The increased difficulty means you have to hit more often and waste more ammo for the same rewards.

 

 

But if you succeed at getting more hits and headshots than the average player you are increasing damage and save ammo.

 

Edited August 5, 2022 by meganoth (see edit history)

[JCrook1028]

22 hours ago, Apocalyptical Survivor said:

Counter productive? If you raise the risk of dying, it seems intuitive that you should be compensated in some way.

You started this by saying the game was too easy and that you wanted more of a challenge. By upping the difficulty you are getting rewarded with exactly what you asked for, more of a challenge. If you also got more conventional rewards like better loot etc then you again LOSE the challenge that was thew reason you stated. Can't have it both ways. Do you actually want more of a challenge or do you just want to pretend so?

[Apocalyptical Survivor]

I didn't say the game was too easy, I said that *I* was finding it too easy and I considered raising the difficulty level. What I learned however is that if you do that, you increase the difficulty without getting any additional reward, which means that all you get by doing that is more challenge. More challenge is not in and of itself my goal, my goal is more fun, and that usually derives from the standard formula: more risk = more reward, i.e., better loot. The disappointment of extra effort without any payoff other than extra challenge was the point of my message. A simple observation (apparently shared by others), no need to complicate it with additional interpretations.

[meganoth]

4 hours ago, Apocalyptical Survivor said:

I didn't say the game was too easy, I said that *I* was finding it too easy and I considered raising the difficulty level. What I learned however is that if you do that, you increase the difficulty without getting any additional reward, which means that all you get by doing that is more challenge. More challenge is not in and of itself my goal, my goal is more fun, and that usually derives from the standard formula: more risk = more reward, i.e., better loot. The disappointment of extra effort without any payoff other than extra challenge was the point of my message. A simple observation (apparently shared by others), no need to complicate it with additional interpretations.

 

That is exactly the use case for biomes. Go into other biomes, there is more reward for more challenge.

 

Edited August 5, 2022 by meganoth (see edit history)

[theFlu]

4 hours ago, Apocalyptical Survivor said:

more risk = more reward, i.e., better loot.

You could argue that the Same thing - essentially survival - is worth More when the difficulty is higher. So, while you get exactly the same thing, you're also appreciating it more. Sorta kinda matches with basic economics, mass produced junk vs skilled artisan items, or price hikes when things get rough etc etc.

 

And if the challenge isn't fun, then why play with zeds on?

[Pernicious]

5 hours ago, Apocalyptical Survivor said:

I didn't say the game was too easy, I said that *I* was finding it too easy and I considered raising the difficulty level. What I learned however is that if you do that, you increase the difficulty without getting any additional reward, which means that all you get by doing that is more challenge. More challenge is not in and of itself my goal, my goal is more fun, and that usually derives from the standard formula: more risk = more reward, i.e., better loot. The disappointment of extra effort without any payoff other than extra challenge was the point of my message. A simple observation (apparently shared by others), no need to complicate it with additional interpretations.

 

I find that logic a little circular. If you say double the hit points of zombies, but then you level faster, get more perks, drop say the machine gun sooner and loot more bullets, are you taking more risk? If you are not, then why are you getting more reward?

 

If it gave more and better non-combat loot (e.g. vehicles, crafting stations but not materials - i.e. quality of life loot) rather than xp and combat loot, I could understand that would be a sustainable risk-reward scenario. But as soon as you start making the player tougher or giving them better weapons and armour, you take the extra risk out of the equation.

 

Edit: maybe put it another way. I am trying to remember what game it was now, but ages ago, I played a game where increasing the difficulty not only increased enemy hit points and damage done, but also lowered reduced the XP and loot dropped. I think thay kind of showed the relationship between loot and difficulty. The less loot you got the more difficult the game became.

Edited August 5, 2022 by Pernicious (see edit history)

[JCrook1028]

On 8/5/2022 at 12:57 PM, Apocalyptical Survivor said:

I didn't say the game was too easy, I said that *I* was finding it too easy

Lmao, you're kidding right? Talk about splitting hairs to try to make a point. You're using a microscope and a laser scalpel there my friend. I'm done here.

[FranticDan]

Increasing difficulty does exactly what is says, makes the game harder.
I doubt there are many games out there that reward player for playing on the "harder" difficulties

Anyway, here's what each difficulty does. Do note that DoT dmg from bleed and stun baton are unaffected.

Scavenger: Deal 200%, Take 50%, No zombie rage
Adventurer: Deal 150%, Take 75%, 15% chance of rage and 1% chance of Super Rage
Nomad: Deal 100%, Take 100%, 30% chance of Rage and 3% chance of Super Rage
Warrior: Deal 83%, Take 150%, 35% chance of Rage and 5% chance of Super Rage
Survivalist: Deal 66%, Take 200%, 40% chance of Rage and 8% chance of Super Rage
Insane: Deal 50%, Take 250%, 50% chance of Rage and 15% chance of Super Rage

[Melange]

40 minutes ago, FranticDan said:

Increasing difficulty does exactly what is says, makes the game harder.
I doubt there are many games out there that reward player for playing on the "harder" difficulties

Anyway, here's what each difficulty does. Do note that DoT dmg from bleed and stun baton are unaffected.

Scavenger: Deal 200%, Take 50%, No zombie rage
Adventurer: Deal 150%, Take 75%, 15% chance of rage and 1% chance of Super Rage
Nomad: Deal 100%, Take 100%, 30% chance of Rage and 3% chance of Super Rage
Warrior: Deal 83%, Take 150%, 35% chance of Rage and 5% chance of Super Rage
Survivalist: Deal 66%, Take 200%, 40% chance of Rage and 8% chance of Super Rage
Insane: Deal 50%, Take 250%, 50% chance of Rage and 15% chance of Super Rage

Thanks for this. I understand the Deal and Take numbers. But what does Rage and Super Rage do to zombies exactly? Increase their Deal and Take (only guessing here}? If so, by how much?

[FranticDan]

6 minutes ago, Melange said:

Thanks for this. I understand the Deal and Take numbers. But what does Rage and Super Rage do to zombies exactly? Increase their Deal and Take (only guessing here}? If so, by how much?

Rage makes them move faster
Super Rage they move even faster and for much longer
On nightmare speed they can easily run faster than you while in super rage

Edited August 7, 2022 by FranticDan (see edit history)