Difficult starts

Nighthawk · 2014-09-06T23:56:14.000Z

Anyone else experiencing flurries and absurdly cold weather at the beginning of every single game, despite starting in springtime?

Also, holy crap Mi-gos and skeletal dogs right off the bat doing absurd damage and making the first half hour impossible to survive.

123456789 · 2014-09-07T06:25:17.000Z

[quote=“Nighthawk, post:1, topic:7285”]Anyone else experiencing flurries and absurdly cold weather at the beginning of every single game, despite starting in springtime?

Also, holy crap Mi-gos and skeletal dogs right off the bat doing absurd damage and making the first half hour impossible to survive.[/quote]
Yes. Both have been cause of the death of early characters so many times I had to just turn on debug menu and cheat around them. The cold weather is also fucking annoying at the beginning, it happens 100% of the time from what I can tell, then it gets absurdly hot before summer. Spring is just all fucked up atm. And Mi-gos are ubiquitous, they spawn near corpses but the corpses occur way too often and they can spot you from half way across the map. It’s almost impossible to go anywhere without getting attacked by one or two, which is devastating at the beginning.

jimboblordofeskimos · 2014-09-07T07:04:00.000Z

The few builds ive used from the last week have been ok, its possibly still a bit cold, but you can deal with it. A bit before that we where seeing -20C and below in spring, that seems to have been fixed now.

kevin.granade · 2014-09-07T07:40:38.000Z

Care to quantify “absurdly cold weather”? A quick set of tests spawning in a few different worlds indicates that temperature at game start tends to be 24F. While that’s lower than average for the season, I certainly wouldn’t call it absurd. We should look into tweaking that so gravitates around low thirties Fahrenheit, but I don’t think that’s going to significantly change how easy an average start is.
We should also look into giving the player starts a bit of a boost in the cold weather gear department, even if caught off guard an average inhabitant of the area would generally be better dressed for the season than most of them are. We’re talking a jacket, light gloves, and a hat though, nothing major.
One thing confuses me though, you’re saying the cold is regularly killing you? How’s that happening? If you’re dressed and awake, especially during the day, I expect the cold to be slowing you down at worst, not life-threatening, and it’s super easy to keep warm while sleeping, just make a pile of all the clothes you can find and sleep on it.

Beanchilla · 2014-09-07T08:53:58.000Z

It hasn’t been killing me in the latest one so I think it has been somewhat addressed.
That said, there have been a lot of flurries for Spring lately haha.

Nighthawk · 2014-09-07T19:24:05.000Z

[quote=“Kevin Granade, post:4, topic:7285”]Care to quantify “absurdly cold weather”? A quick set of tests spawning in a few different worlds indicates that temperature at game start tends to be 24F. While that’s lower than average for the season, I certainly wouldn’t call it absurd. We should look into tweaking that so gravitates around low thirties Fahrenheit, but I don’t think that’s going to significantly change how easy an average start is.
We should also look into giving the player starts a bit of a boost in the cold weather gear department, even if caught off guard an average inhabitant of the area would generally be better dressed for the season than most of them are. We’re talking a jacket, light gloves, and a hat though, nothing major.
One thing confuses me though, you’re saying the cold is regularly killing you? How’s that happening? If you’re dressed and awake, especially during the day, I expect the cold to be slowing you down at worst, not life-threatening, and it’s super easy to keep warm while sleeping, just make a pile of all the clothes you can find and sleep on it.[/quote]
Yeah, it’s always 24 degrees Fahrenheit, and there are always flurries. And no, the cold isn’t killing me - it just lowers morale and slows me down after I’m outside for a bit, making it even easier for the skeletal dogs and Mi-gos I mentioned to rip me to shreds in seconds.

Main reason I made the post is because people said the experimental builds were actually pretty stable, but I found it really jarring (not to mention discouraging) to be faced with cold weather and impossible enemies as soon as I started.

[size=5pt]Also, thanks for moving the post to a thread, Kevin. You could have just deleted it, but you moved it. That was cool of you.[/size]

Valpo · 2014-09-07T19:39:41.000Z

I think the weather is okay at the moment. And i as well encountered 2 migos on what 2nd day not to sure yet i died like 3 times in a row within the first 3 days . That was awesome :3
Trying to survive the early game against them if your so unlucky to encounter em has always been a source of fun to me (and lots of death :3).
Maybe the conditions of our surroundings should get continuesly more hazardous so that the game goes from hard start to hard mid game to hard late game (y)

Nathan · 2014-09-07T19:57:21.000Z

the starting shelter gives you plenty of resources to deal with the cold, but that does force the starting game to pretty much always follow the same path. still its a pretty good path to go down to get some survival, fab, and tailoring off the bat.

vultures · 2014-09-07T20:38:48.000Z

It’s hard - but I think it should be even harder. Mi-Go really is the bane of a starting character - and it’s no Hulk, that can appear outside your front door if you start from a suburban home. Encountering a ZMaster, it seemed like the thing was turning regular Zs into ‘spec’ ones rather slowly.
The start of the game should test your skills through evasion and cunning approach, and the game itself should prove challenging for an advanced character looking to overcome obstacles and conquer.

Legion, 2010 :
The first attack was the test of our strength, the second one will test our weaknesses.

Nighthawk · 2014-09-08T16:58:28.000Z

Yeah… ideally the game’s difficulty will ramp up as time goes on, via enemies becoming mutated, stronger, more agressive, etc., not remain static (no pun intended) from start to finish.

I mean, most hardcore roguelike players won’t be too dissuaded by difficult starts, but the game ought to at least try to be more user friendly, for the sake of, well… doing what a game is supposed to do: entertain.

For example, I can’t imagine a Legend of Zelda game, where the enemies deal three hearts of damage in one hit at the beginning of the game but never get stronger. That would force newbies to avoid ALL damage until they obtain more hearts and can tank the hits, and lead to later game being a cakewalk.

Unfortunately, the current state of Cataclysm DDA is pretty close to this. Early game is crazy hard to get through, but once you survive a few days and your survivor starts building up skills, the game begins to become nearly impossible to lose, provided you don’t do something stupid like sit on a live mininuke, or hold down 5 in the middle of a horde.

Valpo · 2014-09-08T17:04:50.000Z

You can actually get to a point where you can kill a horde while reading porn given you use brawling fighting stile.

Nighthawk · 2014-09-08T17:12:14.000Z

And that makes it sound like you’re nearly unbeatable… but I’m also afraid of a difficulty curve revolving around mutations leading to more special zombies resulting in unwinnable situations for late-game survivors. I mean, can you imagine trying to survive again a giant horde where every zombie is a Brute, Hulk, Shocker, Spitter, etc? Attacks like the Shockers’ lightning and Spitters’ spit not only hits from a range, but at times, can’t be fully dodged. Now imagine those attacks, but a constant STREAM of them.

That would be awful.

Valpo · 2014-09-08T17:31:35.000Z

There is a cbm that makes you immune to electric attacks and i think at a certain value of deff against inviromental hazzards you ll resist acid puddles quite well so yeah i can imagine acing that one given the right equipment and bionics. To make the killing faster you could use a flame thrower bath everything in fire (or something else that sets things ablaze) have the anty fire cbm (forgot name) and just stand in the fire while everything burns (maybe something to filter the smoke from the flames as well) tada xD. well however that would be quite fun if i was driven to the point where i realy needed all my stuff !! i wouldn t complain then.

edit. Although the flames wouldn t hurt you maybe the radiated heat will ?? i should test that… uh sounds confusing xD

edit2. I could also imagine myself teleporting out of a horde running away on rolerblades while setting the road on fire hummmm… but i d realy need a scenario that has me able to do this and pushes me to resort to this… i hope it happens usualy i end up meeleing the crap outa everything with my bare hands (although most of the time i wear gloves when i can )

edit3. a constant stream of anything would be plain annoying. i remember having a blob army filling more then one full screen… made my game unpülaiable cause every turn needed like a whole minute to compute… they did beat me with numbers after all ;( (i commited suicide xD)

jimboblordofeskimos · 2014-09-09T01:55:32.000Z

Zs generally arent what kills you after a few days, hulks maybe, but mostly turrets, higher end bots and burst firing NPCs.

TinHead · 2014-09-09T02:36:46.000Z

Its just like the Walking Dead11111111!111111111111111111111111111111111

To be honest, NPC’s shouldn’t have M249s and RPGs on day one.

I can see it on day 120 though.

123456789 · 2014-09-09T09:25:23.000Z

[quote=“Kevin Granade, post:4, topic:7285”]Care to quantify “absurdly cold weather”? A quick set of tests spawning in a few different worlds indicates that temperature at game start tends to be 24F. While that’s lower than average for the season, I certainly wouldn’t call it absurd. We should look into tweaking that so gravitates around low thirties Fahrenheit, but I don’t think that’s going to significantly change how easy an average start is.
We should also look into giving the player starts a bit of a boost in the cold weather gear department, even if caught off guard an average inhabitant of the area would generally be better dressed for the season than most of them are. We’re talking a jacket, light gloves, and a hat though, nothing major.
One thing confuses me though, you’re saying the cold is regularly killing you? How’s that happening? If you’re dressed and awake, especially during the day, I expect the cold to be slowing you down at worst, not life-threatening, and it’s super easy to keep warm while sleeping, just make a pile of all the clothes you can find and sleep on it.[/quote]

No. I meant, the skeletal dogs and mi gos were both commonly killing me. It does get cold that first few days of spring, but mostly it only gets cold at night, and doesnt kill me, just causes a lot of pain.

jimboblordofeskimos · 2014-09-09T10:20:44.000Z

Mi go day 1 is often a death sentence if you dont see them coming, its just the RNG rolling a 6 on you really.

vultures · 2014-09-12T02:19:37.000Z

I can see your point of view Nighthawk, altough I don’t think of CataDDA as an arcade game. Sure, RLs offer advancement over CR forming around subsequent dungeons - but this game offers much more diversity even now. A chaotic depiction of Zombie_Shooter_2 pile over pile of undead meatchunks is one thing; ranks of the undead, abominations and demons throughout the Diablo franchise is yet another and perhaps more favorable with the crowd(s).
The problem with on-the-go content sync-ing is that it becomes relevant to a particular playing style. Sure, a gun nut is happy to set anything ablaze, but will a tech-freak enjoy two dozen Z-animals hasting towards his X-Acto knife? Planning ahead one dungeon ahead at a time during your DCSS run is one thing, thinking about the box-around-the-player-character in an open-world, open-ended survival game is yet another. I’ll never imply that beating throng after throng of enemies is a bore, but I’ll be sure to concentrate on those aspects that challenge the greatest number of survival skills at the time. End game could also focus on more drastic climate changes, the kind of that could affect both plant and animal life - thus food sources for the character. Obtaining and securing those could be as much of a challenge as any other, implied as a tough one. Thinking about CataDDA makes me remember different streches or spells, if you wish; the most basic ones being perhaps those outlined with hard work for obtaining resources, standing shoulder to shoulder with ones where your character explores the means to utilize those tools and resources already acquired.

I guess there’s no consolation prize in CataDDA; nobody tells you “You’ve done awrite” if you fail on your very doorstep. Perhaps that > map symbol downtown means a whole lot more to those players who can actually wrap their heads around the ‘live another day’ idea.

HurlockHolmes · 2014-09-17T16:05:03.000Z

I downloaded the “unstable”(Which has yet to actually crash) windows graphical build and have been messing around with it since the 15th, I am not exaggerating when I say that 5 of 11 worlds that have been generated for me have had a roadblock with turrets within firing range of the starting shelter, meanwhile only in one of those 11 worlds have I not run into groups of “netherworld” enemies on day one close to the shelter or between the shelter and the nearest landmark and died because they just run me down. (Kracks are easy enough and Flaming eyes are slow, but gg if you caught by a mi-go on day one).

This wouldn’t be an issue if where they come from was actually marked on the map for you to avoid, or at least shown like zombie hordes if you have the wandering zombies setting on, but they seem to just be anywhere and it kinda blows that you largely get screwed over if you make a character that doesn’t have fleetfooted/quick to cheese a large portion of the mobs.

CDDA’s difficulty curve in general has always made little sense, you would think things would get more difficult as time goes on, and as you explore all the special areas of the game, one of my favorite moments in an older build of the game was wading into a triffid grove in firefighter gear, with incendiary weaponry, and high on cocaine and burning the entire thing out, but now it feels like there is just so much shit cluttering the world that getting anywhere and setting yourself a challenge or goal is almost impossible unless you get immaculate rng or go full meta. Yeah I could turn down the spawns, but I don’t want that, I want to fight massive unrelenting zombie hordes, and armies of triffids, ants, bees/wasps, and even -fun-galoids, what I don’t want are these mobs that are essentially roaming gank squads that there is no escape from, because you CAN completely avoid any of the mobs that are a threat enmass simply because they are clearly marked on the map.(Ant hills/Triffid Groves/Fungal Towers things like that)

TL;DR, Needs less day one instant game enders and more day 120 high tier content for people who manage to get decked out in cbm’s/tank suit and want to do a extremely high risk/reward challenge, because walking out the door of the shelter to get your arm shot off by a anti-material rifle turret, being gnawed to death by a hungry skellington dog that dodges fucking everything even while standing in a bush, or being chopped in half by a mi-go over and over and over again on day 1 isn’t fun for a majority of people.

Valpo · 2014-09-17T16:39:50.000Z

Skelletal dogs dodging everything must be a bug infesting the version you currently play because that doesn t happen to me (at least not all the time :P).
Migos can be pretty murderous and they seem to spawn randomly on you i agree that can be frustrating for most people (I kinda enjoy even dieng 10 times in a row on day 1 to incredible odds but i am special don t minde me :P).
Anti matter turret in range of the strating shelter ? WEll you are pretty unlucky that never happened to me.

About the fleetfooted/quick cheesing … well you can do that but it ain t nessesary against the z imo. And a migo is faster then you even with that so how does it help you against them?
Fungaloids are no threat whatsoever even if i have a fungal bloom right next to my starting shelter . They are a good source of nutritious drinks though. <3 them shrooms.