A17 is the easiest alpha for a long time (and the least fun)

[Exxodous]

I'm not sure I feel this is the "easiest" Alpha. I think normal gameplay isn't too bad (5 deaths in 7 days however) but horde night....DANG.

 

I'll preface that I play 120 min days which is a mistake game stage wise (Level 25), but I don't feel I can get a base built on default. So I spent 4 days building my horde base, that's a lot of trees and boulders btw. And yes I cheesed the AI by building stairs but we were actively defending and repairing, probably went through 500 9mm, 100 shotgun and 100 steel arrows. They run up the stairs, fall down and repeat. I upgraded every block to max scrap iron (2000 hp?) and put out 200 spikes and the base got wrecked. Not by the zombies beating on it but by cops exploding. We (wife and I) probably had a dozen cops or more and countless green ferrels. We did manage to survive but only because the horde stopped at midnight.

 

I guess my point is this. Horde night might advance just a little quickly. I'm sure if I wasn't an experienced player, my game stage would probably have been lower. But my experience also told me that if I didn't take advantage of the AI where I could there is no way the base would have survived. Had the blood moon actually went to 4 am my stairs would have been gone and they would have started on my structure. Now I'm not complaining about that, as I like that they will take out your supports. However the structure I built has no chance on day 14 and I won't have concrete by then.

 

My wish is the game stage advanced a little slower so I could learn what works and what doesn't as I progress through horde nights. If I were a new player the learning curve doesn't seem to match gamestage advancement. I may have to remove cop explosion damage for a while so I can continue testing base designs as I was unable to kill a single one before he blew up.

 

Overall I'm really enjoying this Alpha and look forward to any balancing that may come.

[SittingDuck]

2- It´s not not the gun but the mod... mods are the high level good stuff and we are still looking for a lot of mods ^^

 

3-At level 100 food should not be a Problem. And if you want the challange, dont farm, don´t level the food stuff perks... done... feeding will be realy hard

[Reth]

I can't imagine being Roland. Reading this forums would be the most confusing thing ever. This thread is a great example. OMG this game is too easy now! It's so easy, I had to turn the difficulty down! OMG!

 

Early game becomes exceptionally boring once you know what TFP wants you to do first in this particular alpha. Figuring that out was the challenge indeed, because their priorities for players seem to shift over time.

 

The first few days you can't do much but run around and loot every single pile of trash and nest you see while killing every zombie you see. Once you make your first iron reinforced club and figure out how to do a head strike with a special attack, zombies, dogs and vultures become a non-issue. The only issue is to stand still and wait till your stamina regenerates. That one is hard indeed because I can't recall other games where standing in one place was an important game mechanic, so it took me a while to get used to it.

 

Base building is no more challenging that it was in A16. It's just different. Instead of your regular base consisting of strong walls, deadly traps and a killing field you have to build an inane contraption that exploits AIs desire to follow the path of least resistance. A17 base building is hard till you accept that normal bases don't work anymore, then it becomes easy.

 

PoIs can be very challenging till your stop trying to follow the obvious path in and pull all the sleepers out first. That's where guns come in and you'll have plenty before long. PoIs are hard if you rush in and start swinging like you used to do. PoIs are easy one you figure out that rushing in is not a viable approach.

 

Food can be challenging if you try to loot it all, as you did in A16. It becomes a non-issue once you find out just how much meat animals (including dogs) drop and how many eggs you can loot from nests. Different? Yes. Difficult? No. More exciting and challenging? Hardly.

 

TL;DR - the only challenge is to figure out the right sequence of things to do. Before you do that - it's challenging. After - it's boring.

[Ghostlight]

2- It´s not not the gun but the mod... mods are the high level good stuff and we are still looking for a lot of mods ^^

 

I have more mods than I can use, as I said in OP, even modding up several "duplicate" guns just to make them a little different.