Coming back to the Cataclysm

Game Talk The Bunker
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Hi everyone, I started playing cataclysm back is 0.B I think and then into C and I need some help coming to terms with some perceived problems.

  1. Everything is frozen, all the time, even when I chuck the frozen things DIRECTLY IN FIRE. This has made the already super difficult early game even more difficult and hasn’t really added enjoyment to the game for me as I already found it near impossible to get to the end game without cheating.

  2. has the spawn rate increased? because I use to set monster scaling factor to 95% and the outskirts of cities would have a few zombies that you could clean up and then explore the houses for some early game stuff but now even with moving the monster scaling factor all the way back to 50% city outskirts seem untenable without resorting to some real cheese.

  3. Are zombies just in general tougher and faster? I remember being able to have a venerable mob of zombies choke pointed through a window and being able to beat them with level 2 dodging skill and 1 melee skill. maybe… 15 or so zombies with base stats because it was all 1 on 1 and you were in general faster than the average zombie. Again it feels like the game was balanced around the meta, Is this the case?

All in all I guess my real question is if the game was just made harder in general… again… which I get it most of the community wants this game to be made of spikes and hatred when they try to interact with it. I just like the setting and want the game to be less simulator, it already simulated so much but it seemed to go off the deep end a little with the food vitamins and the filthy clothing and the new frozen mechanics.

I do realize I can fix almost all these things but I just wanted to know if the game legitimately was made harder or if I am just a worse player after being away for so long.

Thanks for all your time reading this.

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Going from B to C is a huge change. It was several years, I think, between releases, so I imagine there will be a huge adjustment period. In fact, I’d say it’s probably like playing an entirely different game.

Frozen items. Yes, indeed, frozen fluid is the bane of my existence. You can heat frozen foods and fluids up using a pot item. Vormithrax also just posted a video about how to defrost toilet water, which may interest you. In fact, I’d recommend you watch his tutorial series, since so much has changed and he makes excellent videos.

Aside from that, I don’t have much advice to give. Once you get used to it, the frozen thing just becomes an inconvenience rather than a game-shattering obstacle.

I can’t speak much to the other stuff, because I didn’t make the shift from B to C. There ARE a lot of zombies. Some of them are fast, some are extremely resilient. As you learn the new (I assume many of them are new for you) creatures, you’ll learn which to avoid and which can be easily bashed to death with little to no equipment.

If you’re really struggling, I’d advise you to adjust monster speed and monster resilience in the World Creation menu. When I was learning to play, I set everything to around 70% while I figured things out.

As for the game moving more towards realism – yeah, a lot of people take issue with that. I, personally, like it. That’s the development direction and I don’t expect it to change.

So, is the game harder? Probably. You’ve noticed the freezing and you probably noticed that first aid items don’t instantly heal you, anymore. But there are also many tools that didn’t exist in B. Like sprinting, for instance, which I believe was absent from that version. We also have crouching, now, if you’re playing the experimental.

I think if you go into it expecting it to be like the version you came from, you’ll probably be disappointed or even angry. Best to approach it like it’s a whole new game.

Also, welcome back to the apocalypse.

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Thank you, for the most part I am going to use balancing mods to scale the games hatred spikes back and make it a more mindless game for myself, I do however want to say I hold no animosity for “realism” changes. I do however hold the idea that those should be opt-in not opt-out but as long as the option exists I am pacified but I believe that is more a discussion for the LAB so I digress.

Second I want to be clear, I started in B and played all the update somewhere into Mid C experimental. so I was here for most of the changes, but then I had a lot of Real Life hit me at once and I stopped playing. So for the most part everything is the same… but different.

I was very excited by the new parts I was reading about and ran face first into “wait… how do I eat food”

but again, Thanks for responding. I appreciate your time.

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Ah, oops. Even though you mentioned and I was talking about B to C my brain was thinking B to D. x_x

Reading is hard.

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  1. Freezing is actually a blessing in disguise IMO. It stops food from going bad and kills parasites, which makes the early game easier once you’ve sorted out a fire source. It’s a pain on minute 1, but usually by day 2 you’ve got some way to heat things and then you don’t have to worry about food spoiling until late spring.
  2. Spawn rates are about the same, though I think 0.D still had the busted evolution code that would give you lots of high-end zombies from day 1, something that’s been fixed since. Still, you should be able to find some safe houses to loot at the edge of most moderate-to-large cities, though you may have to skirt around the city for a ways to find the safe ones.
  3. Bites are more dangerous now, but I don’t think the zombies have been made stronger. Now that evolution is fixed in the experimentals, I’d say they’re probably weaker in the early game than they’ve ever been.
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Vormithrax is great! Really watching his youtube videos one can learn heck of a lot of things about this game.

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