The difficulty progression need some balance

[RantingMonkey]

I wanna be clear here, I don't mind the difficulty but I have over 4k hours in the game and can get myself out of most trouble I get myself into. I don't see the difficulty itself as an issue, it's how fast the difficulty ramps up that concerns me, especially for new players. I haven't played on default difficulty in a long time, I mostly play Warrior, so maybe it's better on Adventurer but I've been surprised by how early I'm seeing cops and radiated zombies.

 

I haven't gone past level 2 quests or day 22 and I haven't gone into the desert, snow, or wasteland yet I've already seen all the zombies the game has except demos. 

 

The game is clearly progression based now but the difficulty doesn't quite seem to fit that kind of game. I just think it needs tweaked a bit. I can see a new player getting really frustrated really quickly when they've been doing level 1 quests, advance to level 2, and Jen sends them to fight several ferals and a few greens in their first level 2 quest. 

[Riamus]

2 hours ago, RantingMonkey said:

I wanna be clear here, I don't mind the difficulty but I have over 4k hours in the game and can get myself out of most trouble I get myself into. I don't see the difficulty itself as an issue, it's how fast the difficulty ramps up that concerns me, especially for new players. I haven't played on default difficulty in a long time, I mostly play Warrior, so maybe it's better on Adventurer but I've been surprised by how early I'm seeing cops and radiated zombies.

 

I haven't gone past level 2 quests or day 22 and I haven't gone into the desert, snow, or wasteland yet I've already seen all the zombies the game has except demos. 

 

The game is clearly progression based now but the difficulty doesn't quite seem to fit that kind of game. I just think it needs tweaked a bit. I can see a new player getting really frustrated really quickly when they've been doing level 1 quests, advance to level 2, and Jen sends them to fight several ferals and a few greens in their first level 2 quest. 

A big part of this is the new challenge system.  You can get a lot of experience really quickly and easily with that, which you didn't get before.  This ramps up the game stage more quickly than in the past.  There could be other changes that also increase it more quickly as well, but I think that's a big one.

[ApokRi]

IDK what the differences are but I used to be a warrior/survivalist myself and figured for 1.0 I would start on default and it honestly feels like warrior to me..

[Adam the Waster]

12 minutes ago, ApokRi said:

IDK what the differences are but I used to be a warrior/survivalist myself and figured for 1.0 I would start on default and it honestly feels like warrior to me..

Exactly I do things zombies in earlier difficulty should be tankier but I do still like tankier zombies makes a game more scary in a way next all we need a few types are more specialized and we're good on zombies.

 

But the zombie should be slightly weaker at least one Club more but any other higher difficulties and it's fair game

[Kosmic Kerman]

11 hours ago, RantingMonkey said:

I wanna be clear here, I don't mind the difficulty but I have over 4k hours in the game and can get myself out of most trouble I get myself into. I don't see the difficulty itself as an issue, it's how fast the difficulty ramps up that concerns me, especially for new players. I haven't played on default difficulty in a long time, I mostly play Warrior, so maybe it's better on Adventurer but I've been surprised by how early I'm seeing cops and radiated zombies.

 

I haven't gone past level 2 quests or day 22 and I haven't gone into the desert, snow, or wasteland yet I've already seen all the zombies the game has except demos. 

 

The game is clearly progression based now but the difficulty doesn't quite seem to fit that kind of game. I just think it needs tweaked a bit. I can see a new player getting really frustrated really quickly when they've been doing level 1 quests, advance to level 2, and Jen sends them to fight several ferals and a few greens in their first level 2 quest. 

 

Agreed. I think the balance is a little off between crafting progression and zombie stage. Seeing rads early may not have been so bad if progression was like A20 or A21. As it is you can end up seeing a bunch of radiated zombies while you can still only craft primitive firearms. In my first playthrough I was running into radiated zombies in tier 3s and 4s in the forest in the second week with a purple iron spear and a blue pipe machine gun. This first time I saw rads I was in a tier 3(?) military base. I was only able to manage them because I could kite them into the mines. Without those I'm not sure I'd have survived. Before doing tier 4s, I did a bunch of tier 3s to earn dukes so I could by a better weapon from the trader. I was only able to solve the mismatch by buying a green pump shotgun. And as everyone knows the shotgun is OP because of the slow.  Without it I would have been constantly swarmed and unable to focus enough damage on the rads to kill them. In previous alphas I would have had a steel melee weapon and tier 2 firearms I looted, crafted, or received through a trader reward before encountering rads.

 

With the increases to xp from challenges and all-night hordes, TFP may need to rebalance the gamestages for various zombies to spawn. It's unclear to me how the 1.0's progression curve will affect newer players. If they die a lot fighting basic zombies maybe their gamestage will be lower and won't see rads in early tiers. Alternatively, if they don't die maybe their gamestage will be higher because it will likely take them more days in game to reach higher quest tiers as they learn the POIs, what to prioritize, and the various crafting mechanics.

 

Finally, I think the focus on crafting over loot/trader rewards is somewhat illusory if you end up having to buy guns from the trader in order to handle radiated zombies in tier 3/4 quests.

[Bhaaltazar]

I am playing on nomad with spears and I thought with preacher gloves it will be like a walk in the park, but it is anything but that. When encountering bunch of rads and ferals in tier 5 spear is kinda useless, feels like using a toothpick agains them  
Gulping down Skull crashers like candies but it doesnt help all that much. 
Don't get me wrong I like it that it is more challenging now, I need to plan whole lot more and also bringing some pipe bombs with me as well and playing with spikes and whatnot to slow them down when whole floor wakes up.
End chest rewards are kind of meh I mostly crafted all my gear to lvl 5 and 6 at day 39. With full lucky looter and +20% looting headgear with mods I did get ocasional good drop to upgrade the weapons ( sniper rifle lvl 5 from tier 5 quest chest ).


 

[Slingblade2040]

Haven't had any issues using a shovel early on and then a iron axe and now a steel axe. Do people not bother maxing out the attributes? Maxing out the damage perk for the weapoms they use? Using wooden spikes? Hatches to slow them down? 

 

I'm just curious if people just go into the PoI using the Leeroy Jenkins style of combat, get rekted then complain about the difficulty from tougher zombies.

 

So far the only zombies I've noticed to be a bit tougher on warrior difficulty have been the feral wight, biker, fat guy, feral cop. Rads are still rads.

 

 

Also that whole idea about it being difficultfor new players is ridiculous. The game has difficulty settings and loot abundance settings. If the zombies are tough to a new player they can lower it to easier settings. Now if they don't because of ego or pride thats on them along with any other seasoned vets.

Edited July 1 by Slingblade2040 (see edit history)

[TWORDY]

I am playing on Warrior with Fortitude. 125% loot abundance, 300% XP gain. Practically all perks in one build are 100% accomplished thanks to XP Party Sharing and at least 3 players in co-op. I would say that XP Party Sharing has to be nerfed over trader rewards.

 

It is kind of a weird situation so far... I have only AK lvl 2 and Iron Knuckles lvl 2. Quest type lvl 2. The overall dynamic of face to face fights reminds me of giving a free botox to zeds. Ferals and rads are in lvl 2 POIs in Green Biome. I believe that difficulty level went up by one at least.

 

In reality, the loot is trash compared to the challenges, but crafting is just slightly ahead of loot containers. 

 

What is going on in here...

[Roland]

2 minutes ago, TWORDY said:

300% XP gain.

 

3 minutes ago, TWORDY said:

I would say that XP Party Sharing has to be nerfed over trader rewards.

 

uh…I see something that has to be nerfed but it isn’t what you are calling for…

[TWORDY]

I don`t mind the progression or that I have to punch zeds a few more times. I have 1250h in 7DTD so far. I derive enough satisfaction from the fact that some of my mates are playing. I think that limited trader rewards pushed us back a little bit. I am having problems with setting up my dedicated server with the experimental build, also and I need probably next version of 7DTD, how nice!

 

Just a bread for thought TFP. If you ever wanted the game leaning toward multiplayer, this is what I would probably address. A bit off top but still related to progression.

 

>>>

Players have to know the basic statistics of a weapon damage model against other undead players.

 

Armors require clear info about blunt, explosion, and projectile damage negation bonuses. All stats have to be written in black on white by the armor stats.

 

Netcode should be a top priority.

 

Traders need at least 3 or even 4 entry points. 1 or 2 is not enough to negate gate campers. 2 might be obvious. Another entry point - a leap or a jump over a fence, a broken net, some underground entrance etc.

 

Traders might be open 24/7 but any activity in the night has to be seriously dangerous for the player.

 

If bandits are being worked on so there might be also a friendly camp that might be much more complex than current trader POIs. Something that works as a safe zone (no PvP running and gunning limited areas) that combines even up to 3 traders. Relatively wide compound or a zone that can be entered from multiple sides.

 

Missions might be started not necessarily by seeing a trader. Let`s say having a transponder, radio, tablet from a trader etc. The player has to see a trader initially. But receiving a reward must require going to trader camp to get it.

 

XP Party Sharing must be nerfed somehow in my humble opinion in PvP online scenario. I don`t mind co-op since I am playing with mates.

<<<

 

Probably I forgot about something.

[ElCabong]

You are getting those tougher zombies because you're playing on Warrior.

 

I play the game a normal difficulty and the worst I've seen in the forest biome is a cop. That was doing an infested quest. I haven't seen anything irradiated, plenty of feral versions of the normal zombies. But not a real feral zombie. 

 

When I do a mission in the forest biome, I rarely have  wandering zombies come in from outside and mess with me. That happens frequently  in burnt biome missions. I've done one in the desert and a very strong mob consisting of a feral fat guy , two other normals, and a buzzard managed to get in the house I was in and hit me at the same time. I played the game for 4k hours too, I survived it.

 

I haven't seen anything in the damage progression under normal difficulty  unreasonable. 

Edited July 2 by ElCabong (see edit history)

[Riamus]

2 hours ago, ElCabong said:

You are getting those tougher zombies because you're playing on Warrior.

 

I play the game a normal difficulty and the worst I've seen in the forest biome is a cop. That was doing an infested quest. I haven't seen anything irradiated, plenty of feral versions of the normal zombies. But not a real feral zombie. 

 

When I do a mission in the forest biome, I rarely have  wandering zombies come in from outside and mess with me. That happens frequently  in burnt biome missions. I've done one in the desert and a very strong mob consisting of a feral fat guy , two other normals, and a buzzard managed to get in the house I was in and hit me at the same time. I played the game for 4k hours too, I survived it.

 

I haven't seen anything in the damage progression under normal difficulty  unreasonable. 

I'm on default difficulty and have seen plenty of ferals and a few radiated in the forest within the first week.  Radiated so far only on infested quests.

[8_Hussars]

I do like the increased difficulty.

The most notable change for me is infested quests.  Infested quests used to be zombies of the same level but just more of them.  Now it seems there are a few less than before, but they are much much stronger.  T3 Infested in Forest biome and a T2 POI with 5 rads, 3 ferals, 2 cops and a partridge in a pear tree.

[ElCabong]

10 hours ago, Riamus said:

I'm on default difficulty and have seen plenty of ferals and a few radiated in the forest within the first week.  Radiated so far only on infested quests.

I see lots of ferals too but I haven't seen any irradiated and just that one cop in an infested quest. Perhaps I'm calling them by the wrong name, I have not seen the more dangerous ferals that look more like hairless werewolves.

[Riamus]

Just now, ElCabong said:

I see lots of ferals too but I haven't seen any irradiated and just that one cop in an infested quest. Perhaps I'm calling them by the wrong name, I have not seen the more dangerous ferals that look more like hairless werewolves.

Those are the wights.  Radiated are the green zombies, ferals are the ones with glowing eyes.

[stample]

19 hours ago, TWORDY said:

I am playing on Warrior with Fortitude. 125% loot abundance, 300% XP gain. Practically all perks in one build are 100% accomplished thanks to XP Party Sharing and at least 3 players in co-op. I would say that XP Party Sharing has to be nerfed over trader rewards.

 

It is kind of a weird situation so far... I have only AK lvl 2 and Iron Knuckles lvl 2. Quest type lvl 2. The overall dynamic of face to face fights reminds me of giving a free botox to zeds. Ferals and rads are in lvl 2 POIs in Green Biome. I believe that difficulty level went up by one at least.

 

In reality, the loot is trash compared to the challenges, but crafting is just slightly ahead of loot containers. 

 

What is going on in here...

 

You're increasing your leveling speed by 3x, while destroying your gear-acquisition rate to 1/3 what it was balanced for. 

 

You are leveling like a madman, which is the primary factor in gamestage, which is directly responsible for the level of Zeds you're getting.  Going into higher biomes will only make it worse, but nothing will stop glowies from showing up in Forest if you're in your 30s or 40s.

 

Meanwhile, you're getting 1/3 the quests done per-level so 1/3 the dukes.  1/3 the loot per level, which means you won't get enough Parts, both Armor and <your pref weapon> or any other direct weapon/armor/tool drops.  1/3 the number of magazines per level, which is critical to even being able to craft the things you need.  1/3 the mined resources, if that's a factor in your leveling.  Its even going to be exacerbated by the amount of smelting/cooking/chemstationing you can do in the time you're moving up.  Less chances for loot also means smaller sample size, reducing the overall reliability of the RNG of loot drops.  All of this will be never be close to being offset by the increased loot % you've got.

 

That said, normal zombies got around a 40% HP boost, while glowies got around double previous HP.  So your weapons are more important than ever to keep on pace with your gamestage.

[7daysOfFun]

On 7/1/2024 at 3:40 AM, RantingMonkey said:

I wanna be clear here, I don't mind the difficulty but I have over 4k hours in the game and can get myself out of most trouble I get myself into. I don't see the difficulty itself as an issue, it's how fast the difficulty ramps up that concerns me, especially for new players. I haven't played on default difficulty in a long time, I mostly play Warrior, so maybe it's better on Adventurer but I've been surprised by how early I'm seeing cops and radiated zombies.

 

I haven't gone past level 2 quests or day 22 and I haven't gone into the desert, snow, or wasteland yet I've already seen all the zombies the game has except demos. 

 

The game is clearly progression based now but the difficulty doesn't quite seem to fit that kind of game. I just think it needs tweaked a bit. I can see a new player getting really frustrated really quickly when they've been doing level 1 quests, advance to level 2, and Jen sends them to fight several ferals and a few greens in their first level 2 quest. 

yes u are right

first bloodmoon with 3 players = 497 zombies

second bloodmoon  with 5 players = 751 zombies

(yes standard setting 8 zombies per players or doesnt this existist anymore?)

 

its kind of boring for new players that doesnt have so much ammo (the bloodmoon night from 22 to 4 is very long for new players)

 

the destroy power from zombies is 2 low, 2 blocks from the horde base only broken...i a21 the half base was destroyed lol

we have all gamestage ~50

Edited July 2 by 7daysOfFun (see edit history)

[Roland]

I think this shift is long overdue. The only issue for new players is that they will assume that 300% xp gain is a setting to reduce difficulty by allowing them to level up faster when, in fact, 300% xp gain increases the challenge by making the difficulty curve easily outpace the player's ability to gear up to meet the challenge. But if they play with everything default I think they will be just fine.

[Whorhay]

I've been playing on Nomad and pretty sure I didn't see a single Rad zombie until I was in Tier IV's, maybe late in the Tier III's, but past day 28. I was a little under equiped to handle them because I was still using a Hunting Knife and rank 1 wooden bow, and a rank 4 pistol. Once I finished that quest I went home and made new upgraded weapons including an SMG and Comound Bow.

[cl0udburst]

On 7/1/2024 at 5:13 PM, TWORDY said:

If bandits are being worked on so there might be also a friendly camp that might be much more complex than current trader POIs. Something that works as a safe zone (no PvP running and gunning limited areas) that combines even up to 3 traders. Relatively wide compound or a zone that can be entered from multiple sides.

This strongly reminds me of how Rust handles (or at the least used to handle) outposts - drawing a weapon would initiate a (15?) second timer after which automated defenses would nuke you from orbit. Dealing damage to another player would put a time-out on entering the outposts at all, say a minute or two. This seems like it would transfer well.

 

Another point I think would be very important to consider re: multiplayer is a serious look at balancing how tools (auger) interact with claim blocks and defenses. The last time I seriously played a true PVP server in 7DTD was A16b4, and at the time basebuilding took two routes:
 

-Hide the base so it's practically impossible to find (this will eventually fail when someone follows you home)
-Excavate a giant pit at bedrock, make hollow pillars up to above ground level and build your base on "stilts".

 

The latter strategy made it very easy to keep people out, with turrets and spikes in the pit. I remember using stacked hatches to make an impenetrable "ladder" with the jump glitch, but the strategy for attacking bases like this was just to have a low-level friend empty out all the turrets by dying repeatedly, and then auger down all the pillar bases to collapse the base. I think adopting some more ideas from Rust here would work well - multiple bedrolls with unique cooldown timers and a minimum radius for placing another nearby an existing one. I would also be curious to see an auto-refillable turret where you could connect "ammo lines" from a central ammo dump similar to how electricity is wired from generators/batteries.

[MechanicalLens]

4 hours ago, Roland said:

I think this shift is long overdue. The only issue for new players is that they will assume that 300% xp gain is a setting to reduce difficulty by allowing them to level up faster when, in fact, 300% xp gain increases the challenge by making the difficulty curve easily outpace the player's ability to gear up to meet the challenge. But if they play with everything default I think they will be just fine.

 

An issue that remains in my opinion is the game does nothing to explain game stage, let alone loot stage or trader stage. It just gives you an arbitrary number, which a new player is not going to know what to look out for and, should they chance upon it, will have no idea what it represents and if it's important or not. There is a challenge designated for finishing off your first horde. Provided the information isn't displayed there, perhaps that would be a decent place for it? (Explain where to find your game stage, what it means, and how it goes up and down.)

I've not read many of the challenges in detail, so perhaps TFP have already tucked it away in there somewhere. Still, I feel like this metric is something only "the nerds" would know about.

Also, this is a common issue, new players jacking the gamestage to 300% and then wondering why the game is so difficult so early on. Perhaps the setting should come with a warning? Something, somehow, to let the player know that increasing it about default will increase the difficulty of the game.

[Roland]

55 minutes ago, MechanicalLens said:

 

An issue that remains in my opinion is the game does nothing to explain game stage, let alone loot stage or trader stage. It just gives you an arbitrary number, which a new player is not going to know what to look out for and, should they chance upon it, will have no idea what it represents and if it's important or not. There is a challenge designated for finishing off your first horde. Provided the information isn't displayed there, perhaps that would be a decent place for it? (Explain where to find your game stage, what it means, and how it goes up and down.)

I've not read many of the challenges in detail, so perhaps TFP have already tucked it away in there somewhere. Still, I feel like this metric is something only "the nerds" would know about.

Also, this is a common issue, new players jacking the gamestage to 300% and then wondering why the game is so difficult so early on. Perhaps the setting should come with a warning? Something, somehow, to let the player know that increasing it about default will increase the difficulty of the game.

Maybe red text that warns of the outcome like when you are warned about trader progression when generating a map. 

[MechanicalLens]

3 minutes ago, Roland said:

Maybe red text that warns of the outcome like when you are warned about trader progression when generating a map. 

 

Agreed. Even just some red screen at the bottom of the screen saying something along the lines of, "Warning: Increasing XP gain will result in a more challenging experience." could suffice. If they want to be descriptive but not go into a full deep dive into game stage, they could tack onto the end, "More advanced zombies will appear in progression sooner."

[Euzio]

It could do with a little fine tuning. If there was a way to stop feral wights or Rads from appearing based on player level rather than gamestage it would be perhaps beneficial? The reason being that locking those spawns to gamestage can sometimes lead to those stronger zombies appearing far sooner than players are capable of handling. 

 

Increasing the XP gain does nothing but simply increase the difficulty really. Sure you get more points to spend but the scaling is not balanced. In fact, looting will play a far more important role because the quality of weapons and tools we get is dependent alot on the amount of books we find now. 

That said, there are mods available to circumvent the progression a little. I myself typically play with a mod that gives 2 skill points per level instead of just 1. That does help speed up player progression but not the zombie progression. 

[TWORDY]

12 hours ago, cl0udburst said:

The latter strategy made it very easy to keep people out, with turrets and spikes in the pit. I remember using stacked hatches to make an impenetrable "ladder" with the jump glitch, but the strategy for attacking bases like this was just to have a low-level friend empty out all the turrets by dying repeatedly, and then auger down all the pillar bases to collapse the base. I think adopting some more ideas from Rust here would work well - multiple bedrolls with unique cooldown timers and a minimum radius for placing another nearby an existing one. I would also be curious to see an auto-refillable turret where you could connect "ammo lines" from a central ammo dump similar to how electricity is wired from generators/batteries.

 

Some of the gameplay solutions are incredible I must say. 

I truly like how resources might be siphoned straight from the chest by making a direct pipe connection with a forge.

 

I suppose that devs are missing the opportunity to make traders even more interesting or create some monuments so players would build their bases around and "socialize" under the barrel of the gun 😅. 

 

The difficulty of zombies in 7DTD is mainly governed by in-game build level and gamestage, do I read it correctly? Are the rewards and loot generated based on trader mission level? More complicated than that I guess.