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

ClaytonRISING · 2013-11-25T23:02:16.000Z

Alright, so lets get this straight: The only other people who tried to survive (I guess you’re the only one who made it to an evac shelter…) are the few handful of other survivors you see when you have NPCs on…

Alright.

dwarfkoala · 2013-11-25T23:05:08.000Z

I would NOT like to have magical loot eating fairies crawling around, but I would like there to be more enemies to fight. As it is, when going for 10K kills, I found that the only way to feasibly get enough enemies to fight was to ramp up the spawn factor and plough through cities in my MFB. I would like to have wandering monsters or things to threaten you later game. Stuff like spreading triffid forests and Fungal hellholes, spreading slime, zombiefied wildlife, nether invasions, so forth to challenge a player and make actually setting up a base a fun prospect.

I say by the time you get to year 5, if you haven’t actively been attacking the sources of infections to the world, you should be under siege constantly by the nastiest baddies that cataclysm can throw to you. If you’ve been attacking triffid groves and burning fungus and marching into the netherworld and kicking out the denizens, struggling against the world in hours of chilling challenging combat then you should have a successful character that can sit happy on a throne of bodies, living large in a horrible death fortress.

ClaytonRISING · 2013-11-25T23:07:14.000Z

“…magical loot fairies…”

You sure do have a weird name for other people who tried to survive.

EkarusRyndren · 2013-11-25T23:10:21.000Z

[quote=“dwarfkoala, post:42, topic:4220”]I would NOT like to have magical loot eating fairies crawling around, but I would like there to be more enemies to fight. As it is, when going for 10K kills, I found that the only way to feasibly get enough enemies to fight was to ramp up the spawn factor and plough through cities in my MFB. I would like to have wandering monsters or things to threaten you later game. Stuff like spreading triffid forests and Fungal hellholes, spreading slime, zombiefied wildlife, nether invasions, so forth to challenge a player and make actually setting up a base a fun prospect.

I say by the time you get to year 5, if you haven’t actively been attacking the sources of infections to the world, you should be under siege constantly by the nastiest baddies that cataclysm can throw to you. If you’ve been attacking triffid groves and burning fungus and marching into the netherworld and kicking out the denizens, struggling against the world in hours of chilling challenging combat then you should have a successful character that can sit happy on a throne of bodies, living large in a horrible death fortress.[/quote]

This is what I’d like to see, this isn’t an artificial difficulty increase, and to my knowledge, this kind of thing is PLANNED. Just not implemented yet.

[quote=“Clayton, post:41, topic:4220”]Alright, so lets get this straight: The only other people who tried to survive (I guess you’re the only one who made it to an evac shelter…) are the few handful of other survivors you see when you have NPCs on…

Alright.[/quote]

It’s well known NPCs are buggy as hell currently. There’s not much that can be done towards making NPCs do their job until the existing bugs are fixed. Which to my knowledge, is going to require a significant amount of work.

As I understand it, CDDA is a clusterfuck of patchwork on top of patchwork on top of patchwork and as it stands a lot of systems would have to be completely reworked before they can be improved upon further. (The NPC system is one of them, I think.) Hell, did you know you can disassemble a handful of items without any tools for rags? I’m not sure if this is intended or just a leftover from an earlier version of the game. Adding more patchwork to the game to make the planned features appear in some fake fashion isn’t going to help in the long run.

ClaytonRISING · 2013-11-25T23:13:37.000Z

EkarusRyndren, I think you may have missed where I said that I don’t mean that there has to be working NPCs for there to have been other people anyways.

The fact stands, there wouldn’t be that much loot in the world. There just wouldn’t. Not everyone died in the initial event; obviously other people made it to the shelter with you (that’s why some are looted, some aren’t). That means other people have tried to survive. Even if they aren’t tangible in the game, they would have been there.

Binky · 2013-11-25T23:14:57.000Z

I think the point is that this is supposed to be a survival game, yet its incredibly easy to survive. I’m not saying that we can’t deviate from the rule of RL’s being stupidly difficult (I’m not going to argue about berlin/wiki definitions, as it is evidenced in DCSS,NH,Band and all the other main ones), but I’m just saying that a survival game where survival is the easiest thing to do, seems a bit pointless.

Yeah you can mess with spawns/get mods and so forth, but that doesn’t drive the main game development forward in a way that I (and a few others) seem to think would be best.

EkarusRyndren · 2013-11-25T23:18:23.000Z

[quote=“Clayton, post:45, topic:4220”]EkarusRyndren, I think you may have missed where I said that I don’t mean that there has to be working NPCs for there to have been other people anyways.

The fact stands, there wouldn’t be that much loot in the world. There just wouldn’t. Not everyone died in the initial event; obviously other people made it to the shelter with you (that’s why some are looted, some aren’t). That means other people have tried to survive. Even if they aren’t tangible in the game, they would have been there.[/quote]

And you (presumably) heard and dismissed my solution for it. In the event you didn’t (this thread is rather hot):

[spoiler]I suppose a sort of “patch” would be that after the world spawns in any area that the player hasn’t “been to” yet a certain percentage of things (pulled from a list?) de-spawn over time (to represent other survivors cleaning out the area) but other than that and the Item Spawn Rate adjuster you’re complaining about how easy it is for you personally.

As well as a spawn-rate variable, for those of us who feel the devs were wrong in their placement of things.[/spoiler]

Binky · 2013-11-25T23:23:16.000Z

[quote=“EkarusRyndren, post:47, topic:4220”]And you (presumably) heard and dismissed my solution for it. In the event you didn’t (this thread is rather hot):

I suppose a sort of “patch” would be that after the world spawns in any area that the player hasn’t “been to” yet a certain percentage of things (pulled from a list?) de-spawn over time (to represent other survivors cleaning out the area) but other than that and the Item Spawn Rate adjuster you’re complaining about how easy it is for you personally.

As well as a spawn-rate variable, for those of us who feel the devs were wrong in their placement of things.[/quote]

I missed this as well, and I think that is a really good idea actually. That, combined with a removal of super weapons/some OP stuff and a general reduction would help a lot. I’m undecided about how well an Item Spawn Rate adjuster would work other than just doing a blanket reduction in objects - I’d much prefer that the time was instead taken to balance it out better.

As far as ‘complaining about how easy it is’, I really can’t see how he’s wrong (except for those starting the game) as Toilet + fire = water, squirrels = food.

EkarusRyndren · 2013-11-25T23:27:27.000Z

Binky:

as Toilet + fire = water, squirrels = food.

This is exactly what I was talking about. You can live off water and wildlife. But then you’re avoiding the zombies.

As far as my suggestion goes that’s another artificial patch for systems that need fixed. Not something meant to stay in the game.

As far as the spawn rate adjuster is concerned it’d probably have a handful of settings:
0.25, 0.5, 0.75, normal, 1.25, 1.5, 1.75, 2

The other problem is as I understand it the way the spawning system works is ever item on the list has a chance of spawning, which means as we add more crap to the game, more stuff spawns. I’d love it if the game’s spawn lists worked more like fallout’s where it had one list for an item type, then another list could contain the previous list, as well as other lists, with chances to spawn an item or number of items… something like this

List A:
Tin Can 50%
Bent Tin can 25%

List B:
Pencil 25%
Book 50%

List C:
30 of List A roll, 50%
List A rolled 30 times, 25%
List B 15%

and so on, and so on. but again, major rework of the loot system would be involved.

Dominae · 2013-11-25T23:28:50.000Z

I too am hoping in time more challenging elements get added to make the game difficult for experienced players. Roaming zombie hordes, NPC survivor gangs and raiders, and whatever else is planned down the road.

Cranking up the zombie spawn could help, or tuning down loot would help more … but really, if you know what you’re doing, you can become nearly indestructible a lot easier in this rogue-like than in others because the difficulty doesn’t ramp up as much as in games where you go down a floor and the monsters are automatically harder.

Its always tough to balance games for different play-styles and audiences. I’d much rather the game be challenging (or damn-near brutal to new players) as its default setting, with a “Newbie Mode” Tutorial for new players to quickly learn the ropes because I most enjoy and am used to difficult rogue-likes, or at least a well labeled “for experienced players” option that automatically cranks the difficulty up.

Right now it can feel like, if I can survive the 100 meter dash to makeshift-crowbar-open the first suburban home and survive my crack addiction (playing Prostitute for the added difficulty early on), the game is pretty much over. Food hasn’t ever been a problem for me after day 1. Books are easy to find and jack my skills up to workable levels. With tailoring and a bunch of scraps I can outfit myself with [reinforced] well fitting items for every slot that let me go, smartly, toe-to-toe with zombie groups without a scratch. That can all be done in a couple hours play-time. If you get lucky and find some of the aforementioned uber-guns or just a massive stockpile in a basement you’re godlike even earlier.

Hell, I played a “no bionics, no mutations, if I get a bite that infects me I consider myself doomed & quit immediately” game and I made it through winter, had an armored RV-of-doom, and was clearing more difficult content for artifacts when I grew sleepy from not feeling challenged.

As for the “other people would be looting/trying to survive”, the game-lore says its been just a few days, hasn’t it? Without NPCs working correctly (so there’d be roaming looters or bands of survivors, and/or Walking-Dead style towns fortified and full of jerks) it is hard to accurately show that looting going on, or explain where everything went that was looted.

I think having a lot of the better items be in disrepair and scarce would be an improvement. I can’t really foresee how there are so many firearm stocked basements out there (and sometimes they’re stocked enough to make the military outposts look ransacked and sparse). The game world can feel kind of “where did everyone go”, was there a Rapture? Almost like its preserved in pristine condition, barring the vehicles being beat up. Homes are all locked and windows intact. Stores don’t seem looted (which is what would really happen the INSTANT something like this went down). There aren’t signs of other survivors having made a last-stand … no boarded up homes, etc.

ClaytonRISING · 2013-11-25T23:29:50.000Z

Alright, since I’m “complaining”, I’ll take this chance to call out the outrageous weapons that have been contributed. Any weapon that fires the 8x40 or any other caseless rounds, are OP and feel like a Dead Rising game.

A “patch” or “mod” to make the game harder would be counter productive. That means it having to be constantly maintained, updated, the possibility of it not being updated, ect. just to make the game an actual survival game.

vache · 2013-11-25T23:31:19.000Z

Item spawns in general are something that need to be tweaked, along with the basement loot pinatas that are everywhere now. The item spawns in most cases the code works something like: the items in this group have an x chance to spawn, if the x chance happens, the item gets spawned, and another item gets rolled for the x chance, if the x chance doesn’t happen, no items spawn. This means that theoretically, items can spawn indefinitely. In some cases, it leads to huge amounts of items in places that shouldn’t have any, and in some cases, no items in places that should have them. But it definitely is ridiculous that I can find a week’s worth of nonperishable food in most houses, and sometimes even more in the basement.

To be honest, I missed the scarcity of previous versions. I miss the urgency and struggle at the beginning, and now I feel like that’s all gone.

And increasing zombie spawns doesn’t really make the game more difficult unless you turn it up to extreme levels. They just make things more tedious as you have to slog through even more to get anywhere.

The loot in labs is easy to get to as you’re almost guaranteed to find scientist or military corpses along any sufficiently sized stretch of road, and as long as you know how to turn your flashlight off you can avoid getting shot.

The loot in military bunkers is easy to get for the same reason.

Once you have the basics down and know where to look, then everything gets 1,000% easier. As soon as you can survive a few days in-game, you can survive just about anything unless you do something stupid.

Anonymous · 2013-11-25T23:34:26.000Z

[size=8pt]As it stands, if you want to mod DDA, you have to have both a stable version and constantly check out all the experimental updates so that you don’t fall behind in what has been added. Making a big mod could only work for each stable build and those that play as experimental builds come out quickly and often with new items or a lot of minor changes that may not be compatible with what you are doing. And once the new stable version comes out, you have a ton of work to do to make it work with the newest one. It is just a extremely amount of work for someone looking to make a good, big mod that increases the challenge, etc.[/size]

Binky · 2013-11-25T23:45:51.000Z

Most people seem to agree on drastically lowering the item spawn rate on non-perishable food, ammo and medicine and I believe this would be a great start - could it be requested on git? (I’m unsure of the proper way to do it)

Definitely not acceptable for a mod really with the level of development going on (in terms of whole entire game play features), as it’d become really out of date immediately. It’s the same with a scale, although it could be done, I’d prefer it to be set at a good balance (which could be tweaked if needs be). An ‘easy mode’ is the obvious option for new players who don’t want a challenge.

dwarfkoala · 2013-11-25T23:46:27.000Z

Ok, this thing exploded really fast.

Anyways, a page back, when I said magical loot fairies, I mean that I don’t want to have guys getting into every insamely fortified place in the game and swiping everything while the player can do nothing to stop them from eating everything they want, even if it’s through walls, card scanners, turrets, or hordes of zombies.

ClaytonRISING · 2013-11-25T23:48:41.000Z

I think it’s generally agreed that a loot scale factor would be beneficial to everybody.

That’s one place to start, at least.

EkarusRyndren · 2013-11-25T23:49:27.000Z

Binky:

Most people seem to agree on drastically lowering the item spawn rate on non-perishable food, ammo and medicine and I believe this would be a great start - could it be requested on git? (I’m unsure of the proper way to do it)

I’m sorry I missed it, when did this get agreed upon by more than you and Clayton? Maybe you misinterpreted what I said, I don’t think the spawn rate should be drastically lowered. I think the spawn system needs reworked (Along with a great deal of other things)

Clayton:

I think it’s generally agreed that a loot scale factor would be beneficial to everybody.

This I do agree on.

ClaytonRISING · 2013-11-25T23:50:27.000Z

EkarusRyndren:

[quote=“Binky, post:54, topic:4220”]Most people seem to agree on drastically lowering the item spawn rate on non-perishable food, ammo and medicine and I believe this would be a great start - could it be requested on git? (I’m unsure of the proper way to do it)

I’m sorry I missed it, when did this get agreed upon by more than you and Clayton? Maybe you misinterpreted what I said, I don’t think the spawn rate should be drastically lowered. I think the spawn system needs reworked (Along with a great deal of other things)

Clayton:

I think it’s generally agreed that a loot scale factor would be beneficial to everybody.

This I do agree on.[/quote]

Uh…there are a lot more people than just me and Binky who consider the game to be too easy.

FunsizeNinja123 · 2013-11-25T23:51:53.000Z

The game is getting a bit easy for me. I can usally survive a season and a half. Plus I keep my seasons to 21 days.

dwarfkoala · 2013-11-25T23:54:49.000Z

I am with EkarusRyndren on saying that lowered item spawn as a hardcoded thing is not a good idea.

I get what the spawn list reduction thing over time in places the player hasn’t explored yet idea is saying, but I think it also needs to take into account where these items are.

If something’s locked deep inside 3000 feet of hellmonsters, I don’t want to march through it and then realize that SOMEHOW some asshole got to it first and din’t even touch the armies of monsters I had to fight. At the least bunkers should be unsealed and labs should be unsealed too. Doors should be open in houses, windows should be broken, things should be smashed, there should be corpses where corpses should be, so forth if my loot is missing. That way it’s not as much an asspull if my loot is missing.

My rule of thumb is that if the loot in the lab finale is missing partially or completely, than that’s not right.

Also there should be a way to get that missing loot back. NPC barbeque, anyone?