Cataclysm: Easy Days Ahead (AKA, DDA is way too damned easy)

Game Talk The Drawing Board
1

Yup, there it is: CDDA is way too damned easy.

I’ll list some reasons why, in no particular order.

  1. There is way too much loot. It’s like we are the only people in the whole world who have needed to loot anything. Everything is there just waiting for our taking. There is literately never a fear of lacking food/water. If you’re low on something you can just go to a house and get 10 cans of food, or 10 bottles of water. There is no challenge in keeping supplies. You can get hundreds of rounds of ammunition for your hundreds of weapons that you find. There’s more food and water than you’ll ever need, and twice as many sources. Not to mention the absurd amount of medicinal supplies. Overall, way too much loot.

Suggestion: Turn loot spawns wayyyyyyyyyy down. There is just way too much of it lying around. I’m alright with there not being functional NPC’s roaming around, but at least make it feel like someone has looted before you. I want to find a can of beans and it feel like a godsend; not find a can of beans and throw it in my pile of non-perishable food that I’ll probably never have to eat. I want to feel dehydrated because I don’t have any water. I don’t want to get hurt and then immediately be back at full health because I have more medicine than imaginable. It’s easy; there shouldn’t be anywhere near the level of loot that is currently in the world.

  1. There is no survival factor; there isn’t even really a reason to fight zombies or to do anything. The only investment put in to making a death-car-of-destruction that also doubles as your home, is time. That’s literately the only thing. There is no work in to making one, just getting the supplies and time. This isn’t a open world survival game, it’s a sandbox game. It’s the “rogue light” version of Dead Rising. Vehicles are too OP, weapons are too OP, fighting styles are way too OP. It seems like everything is geared towards making the game easier and easier. That’s not what a rogue like is; it’s suppose to get harder and harder. It’s suppose to be hard in the first place. Survival should be a requirement, not an option. The only time I’ve ever felt a challenge is when I instate arbitrary role playing restrictions on my characters. Not to even mention the absurd amount of OP weapons that are constantly being added. On my last character I looted a basement and found almost 400+ rounds of 8x40 ammunition. What? That doesn’t even make sense. Not to mention that that ammo is used in a few different OP-as-hell firearms.

Suggestion: Get rid of all these “end-game” weapons that aren’t end-game weapons. All those redundant large bore calibers and weapons. Make things harder to do. Like building a death-car-of-destruction: it’s WAY too easy. Hell, surviving the first day isn’t even a challenge. Literately the only challenge offered by the game is learning the controls and getting used to them. Get rid of all the wacky ass weapons and the wacky ass fighting styles. Not even Jet Lee would go after a zombie with bare fists. It’s just not logical. Overall, make the game harder. Make the game a survival game, not a sandbox game.

  1. New “content” and features all aim to make the game easier. For example, the recently added “electricity” and refrigerators. What!? A refrigerator!? So now we have a storage area for all of our perishable food…to make it non-perishable. What!? Sorry to aim directly at that feature, but yeah.

Suggestion: We don’t need electricity fueled appliances. This is supposed to be the apocalypse, not a trip to Bed, Bath and Beyond.

I’ll add more as I think of them or whatever.

2

I wouldn’t mind loot spawns being turned down as long as zombies still drop clothing to disassemble, and rocks continue to never mulch.

I like playing ‘survivalist’

3

I agree with everything you’ve said, and I will add that there needs to be more end-game content. It’s way too hard to find challenging enemies and most of the time, far too little reward when you’re already being rewarded left and right (and the artifact rewards often suck when you get them).

4

Cataclysm: Dark days of survival…

5

Huh?

6

Nothingwasmakingajokeohheyitsrainingoutside.

7

Every time someone complains about the game being too easy I’d like to just say something:

Are you an Experienced Player? If yes, keep in mind that that by nerfing the fuck out of the spawns, you screw over the new players who don’t have the slightest idea what’s going on and what you’ve got when it’s “complete” is a game that’s difficult for the developers, who know every, single, last, in and out of the game. It’d be like stripping every single weapon from CoD because you’re tired of getting your ass handed to you by that guy who goes 20 and 0 in a multiplayer match.

Also worth mentioning that when NPCs are on they /do/ take things. Specifically valuable things that they can use. With NPCs off you’re playing with a less buggy game granted but you’re also turning off a balancing factor.

EDIT: Perhaps a middle-ground of some sort? A Spawn-rate slider for items? that way new players can turn it up to 11 and the “hardcore” players can set it to quarter spawns or whatever.

8

[quote=“EkarusRyndren, post:7, topic:4220”]Every time someone complains about the game being too easy I’d like to just say something:

Are you an Experienced Player? If yes, keep in mind that that by nerfing the fuck out of the spawns, you screw over the new players who don’t have the slightest idea what’s going on and what you’ve got when it’s “complete” is a game that’s difficult for the developers, who know every, single, last, in and out of the game. It’d be like stripping every single weapon from CoD because you’re tired of getting your ass handed to you by that guy who goes 20 and 0 in a multiplayer match.

Also worth mentioning that when NPCs are on they /do/ take things. Specifically valuable things that they can use. With NPCs off you’re playing with a less buggy game granted but you’re also turning off a balancing factor.[/quote]

Name one roguelike game besides this one that caters to new players.

Seriously, I’ll wait.

9

Elona

10

Arguably Df once you get past the horrible UI

11

Elona is one of the creepiest games I’ve seen and I’m pretty sure it was built around a Furry/Brony fanbase.

I don’t even like hearing the name lol.

(No offense to anyone)

12

Really, really couldn’t agree more. As much as I love what the all the contributors are doing with making it a complete ‘survival’ game, rather than just a zombie game, it’s far, far far too easy to survive. I mean things like refrigeration, electricity and so on are fine, as they are things you could realistically do, but they’re far too easy to get going - literally no effort.

I’m fine with it not having an insane difficulty curve for beginners - that’s great in fact. However the fact that it’s pretty much impossible to die unless you do something really stupid is, well, stupid.

I guess it boils down to this though: low spawns would be really unrealistic, as realistically you’d be able to find loads of stuff everywhere (in a quick apocalypse as cataclysms is) however, it doesn’t make for good game play. Either zombies need to get ultra-buffed, or realism has to take a hit.

13

[quote=“Clayton, post:8, topic:4220”]Name one roguelike game besides this one that caters to new players.

Seriously, I’ll wait.[/quote]

Aside from DF, literally EVERY OTHER ROGUELIKE IN EXISTENCE.

In other roguelikes the game world is based around you and scales in difficulty as you gain levels and descend further in the dungeon. The only difference here is that C:DDA’s world/monsters/item spawns don’t arbitrarily become more difficult as your skills improve.

14

[quote=“Clayton, post:1, topic:4220”]It seems like everything is geared towards making the game easier and easier. That’s not what a rogue like is; it’s suppose to get harder and harder. It’s suppose to be hard in the first place.[/quote]Give us all one source–excluding yourself–that explicitly states that roguelikes are absolutely required to be difficult.

15

Not only did you just make clear that the game isn’t difficult…belay that.

“Rogue Like” games are based off of the game “Rogue”. Do you know what the main staple of “Rogue” was? It’s difficulty. ASCII visuals and permadeath aren’t the only thing that make a game a RL.

[quote=“Rivet, post:13, topic:4220”][quote=“Clayton, post:8, topic:4220”]Name one roguelike game besides this one that caters to new players.

Seriously, I’ll wait.[/quote]

Aside from DF, literally EVERY OTHER ROGUELIKE IN EXISTENCE.

In other roguelikes the game world is based around you and scales in difficulty as you gain levels and descend further in the dungeon. The only difference here is that C:DDA’s world/monsters/item spawns don’t arbitrarily become more difficult as your skills improve.[/quote]

“…more difficult…”

The problem is, there is no difficulty in the first place. Literately, as mentioned, the only thing that is “hard” is being a completely new player and learning the controls/mechanics.

And with people constantly adding more Dead Rising-esch OP weapons, that spawn ALL OVER, how can the game be suspected to be hard.

They might as well take out the need to eat, sleep and drink and take away all the zombies because those aren’t factors in the game anymore.

16

I couldn’t disagree with the OP more on this one. Even if you’re finding the standard setting easy, there are things you can do. Give yourself less points at the start. Turn on black road. Set zombie spawns through the roof. And remember, this game has no end, you can’t ‘win’ Cataclysm, everyone dies eventually. The challenge is seeing how long you can survive it all. I for one find the balance of difficulty/realism to be quite fine.

17

Actually, spawns do scale over time (granted, not skills, but it’s a given that your skills will go up in that time). And ‘every other roguelike in existence’? have you played DCSS?! Nethack!? these are lethal to beginners, but not at all to experienced players (as seen by the player streaks vs deaths).

And to be fair, I don’t think it’s a case of that DDA is purposely trying to be easy on beginners, it’s just that survival is so painfully trivial that surviving and getting your skills up in safety is far too easy.

To be fair, incoming changes like roving zombie groups, zombies alerting other zombies and so forth will probably help this. In the mean time though, halving loot spawns would be a great way to go.

18

[size=12pt]“Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead is a roguelike set in a post-apocalyptic world. Surviving is difficult: you have been thrown, ill-equipped, into a landscape now riddled with monstrosities of which flesh eating zombies are neither the strangest nor the deadliest.”[/size]

[size=8pt]Quoted from the website.[/size]

19

[quote=“Clayton, post:8, topic:4220”]Name one roguelike game besides this one that caters to new players.

Seriously, I’ll wait.[/quote]

You say that like it’s a good thing. By fucking over your new players you snub growth and limit it to “us masochists”

Is there some easy button I missed? Until I get the MFB built it usually takes me two, three, hell the current game has taken me five lives to so much as secure a town that I can build the damned thing out of lately. And saying there isn’t a reason to fight zombies, that’s a bit superfluous. Sure, there’s no reason. There’s also no reason to play the game, yet we do it because we like it. XD

Well what are you looking for? Dwarf Fortress with zombies?

I’ll admit a few things could use nerfing, but it’s not a push-button = Win game thing. Solar power being one of them…

[quote=“Clayton, post:1, topic:4220”]3) New “content” and features all aim to make the game easier. For example, the recently added “electricity” and refrigerators. What!? A refrigerator!? So now we have a storage area for all of our perishable food…to make it non-perishable. What!? Sorry to aim directly at that feature, but yeah.

Suggestion: We don’t need electricity fueled appliances. This is supposed to be the apocalypse, not a trip to Bed, Bath and Beyond.[/quote]
There are planned things in place that would make the game harder, they’re just not in yet. If you know how to implement them, please do so. But just because the game is too easy for your personal tastes doesn’t mean it should be made impossible for everyone else. So what if someone wants to risk their ass looting a /whatever/ store to get something nice to put in their /whatever/ people get, do, and use absurd shit constantly. I mean hell, Survival of the Dead had the whole “Fiddler’s Green” bullshit, not one of the people in that tower could defend themselves properly but hey, they wanted nice things after the world ended. Even the poor people still had strippers and shit…

If it makes you feel better I can throw a mod into the suggestion that strips the bionics, mutations, guns, martial arts, vehicles, etc, etc down so that you can fight zombies with pointy sticks (Unless you’d like me to remove the knives too) and rocks.

20

Well you are thrown i-ll eqquiped,you remaining i-ll eqquiped is another thing entirelly.

Anyway i enjoy the game more like its now over the false difficulty that we used to have.

Do you guys remember how hard was it to find a pan/pot to boil water? an axe? a welder?

It was no very fun IMO