it has been so long since i played (or it feels like) cataclysm that ive decided to return to it after a long break. the very first thing i notice is that the difficulty on the latest version seems to have dropped by a very large amount. homemade guns act like a lar-10 (reffie) and a teapot is like a chainsaw even without no skills p. with the slow zombies on i thought the zs would at least classic style shamble but its like theyre crawling and without it theres hardly any difference until you make them faster and even then they are a bit slow and weak. big js can be killed with a good old planking to the face and the traits you can get are just op. im sad the challenge i was once bemused by has been killed.
Either you are playing very easy characters, got extremely lucky or je ne sais quois.
Try playing weaker (as in lower str) or crippled (tweaker, broken cyborg, profession) characters, or try out one of the challenge scenario’s (Really Bad Day seems to be up your alley).
You can’t really blame the game for being easy if you are playing the game on easy mode. As for planking a big “j’s” (are you referring to Jabberwocks?) I don’t even know how that’s possible (I had to empty an entire flamethrower to kill one), but try doing that to a Shocker Brute, you will get the planking of your life.
There are few things that could be adjusted, for one, guns should be in lock-boxes, but home-made guns are not particularly powerful (what are you referring to?). Zed’s could do with a bit more armor.
All in all though, I find the game pretty difficult (unless I’m playing a high str character, in which case its basically easy mode).
You kidding? I can’t use my old tactics because of some very drastic changes to mechanics. I’m getting slaughtered nowadays.
Marloss Man only got off the ground because he was extremely lucky. Marloss Man Reborn played it extremely conservatively before getting a 40mm launcher and killing a fungal spire, netting him infinite food. The other ~100 survivors I’ve played died in the first few weeks. This game is hard.
there is no joking in there, the game seems to have been made easier for some reason
Even if it has, if you don’t supply any detail your comment isn’t going to change anything.
i aint asking for anything to change dude juat that it seems to have been made easier, has it?
Asking if the game has been made easier is a bit of a question on perspective. Some people are probably going to see the game as being easier and others as it being harder because everyone has different playstyles, some playstyles make the game incredibly easy and others make it damn near impossible to survive more than an hour. The game hasn’t been made easier or harder in general, it’s just different from what it was like a while ago.
Also, because C:DDA is such a wondefully modifyable game, you can easily increase or decrease your difficulty.
So, if you no longer feel the challenge, just pick a challenging start, turn up the zombie spawn (this one works wonders for making stuff interesting!) or reduce item spawn.
No
Just out of curiosity, can you post your character build, OP? God knows I’d like to have a character who’s able to plank Jabberwocks to death.
Actually, game difficulty has been upped significantly. Cataclysm used to be very easy, and now it’s merely somewhat easy.
I don’t see value in picking difficult starts; starting out with a new character is already the most challenging thing in Cataclysm. I want a difficult endgame, not difficult start.
To be honest, I am like ninja here: I used to be good, not the best, but could survive at least. Now I am a pile of corpses! Also, you said you were playing with slow zombies. And now you complain because of difficulty. You are the one crippling it, man! Go there, put that monster density up, man up and put the normal speeded zambies again and get bitten!
He did actually say he played with it off.
Yeah, realized that after posting but I was too tired to change. I don’t change my opinion though.
The difficulty has been increasing. Armor sets have been nerfed stronger enemies added tanks and brutes buffed. What exactly happened making the game easier? I think the zombie animal spawn has been reduced… well. If you feel its easier maybe you have disconnected memory?? you think you had it hard a long time ago associating this with your experienced self while it was your just starting out self of course having problems … now you restart thinking you are rusty (which your not much) and don t experince the same diff as your first time playing(associating that feeling with your last time playing). Only explanation that i can come up with.
TBH, the game is only easy if you play it “right” (note the quotation marks); out of 10 characters I’ve played so far on the latest experimentals, only 2 of them didn’t survive even a week, mostly because I was just testing around with the new stuff added. The rest of them had very different playstyles, to name a few:
- Fredrick Dasilva, a builder that lives in the starting (heavily improved) evac shelter with a high horde intensity and his NPC friend Zukuzama. He is on day 82, summer (I play on 91 day long seasons; started in spring), and he is still alive, living off from scavenging the nearby town and the careful management of supplies.
- Gray Wolf, a nomadic naturalist that wanders around the land, slowly becoming a wolf rather than a man. He is on day 78 of Spring (I started him recently), and he is still alive, although he is low on water right now (them stupid forests >:( ).
- And now, the most “difficult” of my characters was Bob Bobinson (no joke), a 4/4/4/4 All-bad-traits (no good ones) man in the Really Bad day scenario. He managed to survive 25 days before getting himself killed during a failed run involving shocker hulks and a turret. But seriously, this guy was a huge pain in the ass to play, I must admit.
This. I only saw Jabberwocks twice: in the first time i accelerated as never before and left it behind, the second time(other character), only a LOT of bullets + teleporting around made me kill it. Facing it through melee, and winning? I’m really curious as well.
[quote=“Murphy, post:12, topic:7830”]Actually, game difficulty has been upped significantly. Cataclysm used to be very easy, and now it’s merely somewhat easy.
I don’t see value in picking difficult starts; starting out with a new character is already the most challenging thing in Cataclysm. I want a difficult endgame, not difficult start.[/quote]
So far, the game has difficult PLACES to go(the worst i saw so far were triffid groves, but that artifact i got other day showed me that there ARE worse stuff than triffids…), but the difficulty in the game doesn’t seem to change with time. Maybe seasons, and i guess, more zombified animals, but that’s it. As long as you keep travelling, there always gonna be somewhere new with resources.
Of course, i play as a motorized nomad, don’t know how to game goes to people living in non-movable bases, or other playstyles.
So, for a more difficult game, i recommend specifically:
a) Increased city size - maybe 12 or, if you are feeling lucky, 16;
b) Item density - 0.25;
c) Zombie density - 5;
d) Fast zombies.
Cities are what you will see most, and where most of the few resources are, the zombies will have to be dealt with VERY carefully and night raids are very tense, since zombies will stumble in you faster. Also, agree with most people here, change the monster values if they are too weak, or give yourself an upper limit in skills through the debug.
Shocker hulks? Gosh. Glad I have never met them.
Hey since we’re talking about difficulty here and the newbie killer deathbots over in the other thread, I thought I’d point out:
The important thing about increasing difficulty is that it be at least somewhat segregated. Surprises should happen, but basically there need to be easier areas and harder areas and we need to be able to know the difference. I’d like to see a hierarchy like this.
Wilderness: Very few monsters, and also very few resources. Players are able to make a decent living here with specialized equipment, but will never obtain high-end gear or mutations without venturing somewhere more dangerous. Right now the game does this part just about right.
Cities: Zombies everywhere, guarding plenty of common but useful loot. We’ll have plenty of time to fight battlemechs and Yog’Sothoth later, right here is where the “zombie apocalypse” part of the game needs to really stretch its legs. The game has done this part well, and I’m really looking forward to hordes, but right now the random military superbots are throwing this part all out of whack. Those things should be guarding bunkers, labs, missile silos and such, not out patrolling the suburbs looking for that day one survivor with a nailbat.
Specialty Locations: Labs, bunkers, bee nests, etcetera. These places offer unique and extremely useful loot such as high-end weapons, cybernetics, mutagens, royal jelly, ant eggs, and so forth. Here is where you’re free to ramp the difficulty up to whatever you want, because sooner or later the player is going to have to come here, and it’s their own damn fault if they don’t come prepared. Right now in stable a lot of these places are sort of boring and easy by the time you’re prepared to seek them out, and it’s a bit of a missed opportunity.
Hellworld: Or whatever you call what’s on the other side of those portals. It should take extremely rare and high-end equipment to even survive the environment here, and the difficulty should be astronomical, unpredictable, and brutal. Loot here should be equally astronomical in order to give players a reason to go for it. I don’t claim to know what that loot should be, but it may as well be hilariously overpowered because once someone has conquered Hellworld they basically win the game anyway. This is where a character goes when they’re king of the world and normal challenges have become passe.