In my view the game changed a lot, has sooo much more monster and stuff. While the game seems easier, the variety of monsters make it even.
Also the armor sets have been nerfed, but it is a good thing, in 0.9 armor values was doubled, in 0.A tripled again, so their protection was six times better as it was in 0.8! Now armors like they was in 0.9. Even now - after the nerf - you can strug off common zombie attacks with clothes, but at least there are more dangerous monsters to fight.
Since the OP says “latest version” I assume he means 0.A. If thats the case I would suggest playing the latest experimentals. They are much more difficult than 0.A. In 0.A I had many characters that were able to fight off Mi-Go’s in unarmed combat at skill 0. I even had one that fought off a Jabberwock. In the latest experimentals however many of my characters don’t last a day. That said I do start in the Winter with Fragile… zombies animals are just too tough for that :S
Also turn off slow zombies, I feel like slow zombies wouldnt present a challenge unless you had like 15x zombie spawns, since you can just outrun normal ones quite easily anyway…
[quote=“Thwap, post:20, topic:7830”]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.[/quote]
I agree with everything in this post. Make chicken walkers spawn at military outposts, tank drones at bunkers, and leave antimateriel turrets at blockades. All these will mean you go into each one knowing the risks. Antimateriel turrets can’t chase you, but still offer a challenge at barricades.
Hellworld doesn’t even need its own area. It can simply spawn at z-7, and the portals are elevators. And what about an ATAH (all terrain all hazard) suit? It would be the most difficult and most powerful piece of survivor armor, being fireproof, waterproof, gasproof, radproof, and zedproof, while supplying the wearer with oxygen.
Any plans to bring in the, I think, currently unused cultist enemies?
Already around, check strange unmarked cabins you may find.
On top of which, putting the killbots in locations that actually make sense reduces the whole immersion-breaking “WHY DON’T THEY SHOOT ZOMBIES” thing. The zombies in a lab or bunker are likely to be corpses of people who belonged there, people the robots would be expected to avoid shooting.
On top of which, putting the killbots in locations that actually make sense reduces the whole immersion-breaking “WHY DON’T THEY SHOOT ZOMBIES” thing. The zombies in a lab or bunker are likely to be corpses of people who belonged there, people the robots would be expected to avoid shooting.[/quote]
The robots not targeting zombies is actually explained, spoiler in case anyone doesn’t want to know though
The various different robotic foes in the game are all connected to a “central command” essentially, or various different central commands. When the blob infecting deceased humans and animals became massively widespread the army noticed that robots wouldn’t target zombies, due to identifying the blob, not a human, and classing it as either an animal or deceased human, not a threat so not a target. In an attempt to make robots combat the zombies they pretty much turned their aggressiveness up to 11, which unfortunately made them lethal to humans but still not target animals or corpses. Explaining why they give absolutely zero fucks about any other potential target except you and other survivors.
Yeah but that’s bollocks, no sane human being would ever design a system that functions that way. This is a future where robots are commonplace, remember. The idea of having to target non-living or even actively stealthy targets would have occurred to them. They wouldn’t leave some gaping security flaw where a perfectly visible human-sized target could just hokey-pokey right into the White House unchallenged just because it’s body temperature was thirty degrees off or whatever.
In an overwhelming scenario like this, you would expect robots to be set simply to blast all moving targets not broadcasting an active IFF signal. That is to say other military robots, possibly zombie soldiers carrying IFF beacons, possibly the player if they can steal an IFF beacon, whatever. Just throwing out ideas that I know are a thousand times harder to implement than they sound.
I’m kinda warming to the tankbots a little, provided they give you plenty of warning not to come any closer. I’d love to see them aggress zombies just to see one pull some hordes down on itself, because holy dogshit. Are we going to be able to hack them? Because I will make it my entire goal to drive one down Main Street USA and have it go full-bore into the hordes.
But mostly I tend to use my vehicle as a mobile base and explore the cities on foot, so I shouldn’t have too much to worry about unless I’m stupid.
On top of which, putting the killbots in locations that actually make sense reduces the whole immersion-breaking “WHY DON’T THEY SHOOT ZOMBIES” thing. The zombies in a lab or bunker are likely to be corpses of people who belonged there, people the robots would be expected to avoid shooting.[/quote]
The robots not targeting zombies is actually explained, spoiler in case anyone doesn’t want to know though
The various different robotic foes in the game are all connected to a “central command” essentially, or various different central commands. When the blob infecting deceased humans and animals became massively widespread the army noticed that robots wouldn’t target zombies, due to identifying the blob, not a human, and classing it as either an animal or deceased human, not a threat so not a target. In an attempt to make robots combat the zombies they pretty much turned their aggressiveness up to 11, which unfortunately made them lethal to humans but still not target animals or corpses. Explaining why they give absolutely zero fucks about any other potential target except you and other survivors.
It would be cool to have a building where you could, if having enough computers skill, make them target everything except you. And then building manhacks and stuff would not make them try to kill you. THE MASTER OF ROBOTS.
I haven’t run into any tankbots or chicken walkers yet, but I have had some run-ins with roadblock turrets.
Though the lore states why the turrets aren’t shooting zombies, part of me wonders if it’s more of a balance issue? Think about it, if turrets would shoot zombies and/or the player, how often would people train an entire city’s worth of zombies to the local turret just to farm the loot? We humans are crafty and can surely find a sneaky way to get close to the turret without exposing ourselves to gunfire while at the same time, abusing the pursuit AI so they run right into the turrets LOS.
In my creative endeavors into gaming systems and such, I actively fight against such exploitation.
[quote=“Loendal, post:30, topic:7830”]I haven’t run into any tankbots or chicken walkers yet, but I have had some run-ins with roadblock turrets.
Though the lore states why the turrets aren’t shooting zombies, part of me wonders if it’s more of a balance issue? Think about it, if turrets would shoot zombies and/or the player, how often would people train an entire city’s worth of zombies to the local turret just to farm the loot? We humans are crafty and can surely find a sneaky way to get close to the turret without exposing ourselves to gunfire while at the same time, abusing the pursuit AI so they run right into the turrets LOS.
In my creative endeavors into gaming systems and such, I actively fight against such exploitation.[/quote]
You know sometimes i bring zombies between me and a turret that is just about in firering range… then it will most likely shoot the zombies …just cause they are in the way… its also a way of draining them of theire ammo… hm am i exploiting … na dun think so i am just having fun :3
Well… There’s a difference between exploitation (Deliberately and continuously abusing a system in a way it’s not fully intended) and being clever. It’s one of those hard-to-explain-or-define things, which makes it such a challenge to combat.
Putting a few zombies in between you and the turrets isn’t so bad, but if you’d built a structure around the area to funnel them in (for example) and used that to clear a city that could be considered exploitative, in my opinion. Then it falls into the usual internet type arguments, such as APB’s infamous “Percs are for noobs” arguments or “You shouldn’t have run with that bank truck you’re supposed to keep away from us” thing…
well considering the massive amounto of work it would impose upon you to funnel a city woth of zombies…
still isn t exploiting either way.
Realy now things like excessive savescumming for best results when -mutatioing / or installing cbms thats exploiting.
Craftiness should be rewarded, not prohibited.
My rule for this is quite simple, if it’s reasonable in real-life, its not exploitation. So, kiting zeds into turrets is o.k, since it is something that can be done in the real world.
Reloading the game to get a desirable outcome? Not ok.
Fine line between rewarding craftiness and de facto requiring it (as in expecting players to kite zeds, and balancing the game with that in mind).
So the portals actually do something now? This might be alright.
Anyway, kiting zombies into turrets seems like a logical thing to do. Kill 2 birds with one stone and all that.
I totally agree that difficulty level has got extremely low. Even with my “hardcore” settings (0.10 item spawn rate, no bionics, no mutagens, wanderers) it’s so freaking easy to survive. Once you cleaned up the lil town your melee combat skill will raise enough to allow you to destroy enemies with damn pipe. I don’t even use firearms anymore.
I think skill influence on your actions should be nerfed. Like, remember first aid skill category - up it to 6 and bandages will act like medkits and regenerate you completely.
[quote=“RandomGuy, post:38, topic:7830”]I totally agree that difficulty level has got extremely low. Even with my “hardcore” settings (0.10 item spawn rate, no bionics, no mutagens, wanderers) it’s so freaking easy to survive. Once you cleaned up the lil town your melee combat skill will raise enough to allow you to destroy enemies with damn pipe. I don’t even use firearms anymore.
I think skill influence on your actions should be nerfed. Like, remember first aid skill category - up it to 6 and bandages will act like medkits and regenerate you completely.[/quote]
i don t see how it has gotten low? you might have an easier time now playing the game now that your more experienced but pls reffer to aspects of the game that have been made easier now as oposed to earlier in development?
id rather say the game is getting harder with new versions since new monsters are getting added, zombie spec ops, some stupid anti riot robots with pacifying gas etc… everywhere i go its not just zombies theres always some ‘special’ monster (iv run into freaking turrets on the street wth?) that i cant possibly deal with a starting character and i get murdered trying to get some loot its getting frustrating