Great game....but too easy

[zedsdead]

I finished the game at day 45. After you know the mechanics, its a piece of cake really. I started my second run today, because i thought maybe i was lucky the first time. But i am almost at day 20 again, everything is going fine, enough food, medicine, bandages, moonshine, etc.

You can break the game down into 4 different phases:

1) Beginning (mild temperature)
2) Rebels vs. Military: Some Locations are unreachable because of the fighting
3) Wintertime (cold): Some locations are unreachable because of the snow
4) Endgame (mild temperature): Shelter Raids: you nearly get attacked every night at the shelter until the peacekeeper army ends the war.

The praised randomness for replayability is there, but doesn't go very far. Some locations are always the same, like the elderly couple, or the son who protects his parents. Some locations have randomnized scenarios(but i think not more than 2 choices). The supermarket for example: The soldier who wants to rape the woman or the band of armed men who scavenge there, but they are peaceful.

My suggestions for making the game harder (Hardcore mode):

Nerf the rat traps (2 traps and you have all the food you need, so much that you can trade it away regulary)
Nerf moonshine production (its too easy, there is alot of sugar around, i always have a stock of minimum 6 bottles when the trader comes)
Reduce the amount of medicine(i never need to produce meds or bandages, i never need to use herbal meds cause there is plenty of meds to aquire through scavenging, stealing or trade.
Random Events at the shelter: More negative scenarios, like a sickness where the whole team gets sick, spoilage of raw food, the people that knock on your door: more negative scenarios (example the kids who collect meds and food for their mother. Chance 50/50 that the mother dies, they knock at your door to seek shelter: yes=2 more mouths too feed, no=whole team is depressed)
A longer war: the war is kinda short...from 30-50 days.

Gotta say you did a really good work with the game. I would love a DLC with more locations, harder gameplay, longer war.

[Satchfan]

Have you started in the cold?
I cant get the game to start in the mild temp at all now. And the starting items are different. I find lots of sugar and more fuel in my base rather than food and lock picks. and half of my places to scavenge are inaccessible from day 1.

Im finding this game rather difficult

[zedsdead]

hmm, are you sure it was that "winter phase" with the snow? or just temperatures below 15 C°?
I don't think its possible to start with the very cold weather. Would be great for a harder start tough.
In both of my runs the snow came after day 20+...

why are they inaccessible? build a metal workshop in the beginning for the crowbar, shovel etc.

I am at day 31 now on my second run...everything is going alright, i might feel brave enough to attack the military outpost this time

EDIT: just red your other post...great stuff gonna try to start in winter for the next playthrough

[Galdis]

Your "phases" aren't really accurate. They can happen at different intervals and earlier than expected. I am 43 days in and I still haven't had the "armed robbers" phase, but I survived the winter phase and "rebel vs. military" phase where you can't go places "due to fighting."

I don't think moonshine production should be nerfed because I found it very difficult to manage my water and fire wood resources. Sugar is pretty easy to get, but firewood and water are not.

I don't think medicine should be nerfed, either. While I had the same experience you had in terms of never running out of meds or having any trouble, all of my friends that played the game did. They would tell me how they had everything in abundance except for medicine and would lose because everyone died of sickness or hypothermia. I don't don't think there should be more negative effects because raids can be pretty damning in of themselves. You spend a lot of bullets fending off raiders, especially in late game, and when they manage to dip into your resources they really stick it to you. I don't think spoilage would be desirable (especially when it's fairly cold already and one could realistically store their food outside) for these reasons. I also don't think more people need to get sick more often. While spreading disease would be realistic, I think it would screw the kind of people I mentioned above that consistently have trouble finding medicine.

As for random events from door knockers, I was actually genuinely surprised that no one who knocked ended up trying to invade. This is probably because the developers never intended for combat to happen while the player was controlling more than one character. As for children being allowed into the game, that will never happen. I don't know about other countries, but in the USA it's actually illegal to have children in a video game that can be killed through player action (e.g., not feeding them).

As for the rat traps, I have no comment because I never used them. I managed to survive by scavenging and trading alone. As for a longer war, I think that's something that could be added in but would require a serious re-balance of resource amount to deal with the longevity. The way the game is now, I doubt any player would be able to make it 60 days because there is no way to manufacture certain resources (e.g., components, wood, mechanical parts, electrical parts).

[BlueVash]

My most recent playthrough started in full-on winter. Snow on the ground, temperatures at -5C, the works. I did find a lot of fuel in the house, but after that dried (burned) up finding enough wood to keep the house warm and prevent illness while still building improvements was very difficult.

There just seems to be a lot of randomness in this game. When I started my second playthrough I thought maybe the game had automatically switched to easy mode after my failure in the first playthrough. Many, many more items to be found and fewer raids than in the first one. Then the crime wave came and wounds, wounds, wounds. Life isn't fair, virtual or otherwise!


Edit: Oh, and there's no way there's an actual law against showing a child dying or even killing one yourself in a video game in the US. Freedom of expression and all that. Companies just know family groups and the media would jump all over that, that's it's in poor taste and very likely to hurt sales due to the guaranteed "AO" rating, so choose to not allow it. Even in movies, which seem to get a free pass for a lot of things video games don't get, it's extremely rare, but it does happen.

[zedsdead]

@Galdis

The chronological order maybe random, but the scenarios are correct.

As for the rest, i hope there will be a harder difficulty for those who want it harder. Maybe through mods. I never experienced the hardship you describe, maybe on my third run. Gonna try to start in wintertime.

[svedric]

I've done now two game, first with mild start and second with winter at start. Both games weren't that difficult, in the second for example you've still enough loot in the harmless places, and after the winter is gone i focused on cleaning the danger places like the military base, which allowed me too stay in the house and survive through the trader if wanted, due the high amount of weapons, food, medicals etc.

It would be interesting if the devs add maybe some kind of "hardcore" mode, maybe with less carry slots at beginning and the ability to build bags f.e., also it would be interesting if the people would also need water each day, this would at least change the priorities on the scavening runs. There would be a lot of other possibilitys to increase the difficulty of this game, please devs do something

[zedsdead]

@svedric

exactly, the need to drink not only eat would be great. I also started a new run, starting in winter conditions. like it more.

[whitekess]

I finished the game at day 45. After you know the mechanics, its a piece of cake really. I started my second run today, because i thought maybe i was lucky the first time. But i am almost at day 20 again, everything is going fine, enough food, medicine, bandages, moonshine, etc.

My suggestions for making the game harder (Hardcore mode):

Nerf the rat traps (2 traps and you have all the food you need, so much that you can trade it away regulary)
Nerf moonshine production (its too easy, there is alot of sugar around, i always have a stock of minimum 6 bottles when the trader comes)
Reduce the amount of medicine(i never need to produce meds or bandages, i never need to use herbal meds cause there is plenty of meds to aquire through scavenging, stealing or trade.
Random Events at the shelter: More negative scenarios, like a sickness where the whole team gets sick, spoilage of raw food, the people that knock on your door: more negative scenarios (example the kids who collect meds and food for their mother. Chance 50/50 that the mother dies, they knock at your door to seek shelter: yes=2 more mouths too feed, no=whole team is depressed)
A longer war: the war is kinda short...from 30-50 days.

Gotta say you did a really good work with the game. I would love a DLC with more locations, harder gameplay, longer war.

GG game - 100% and too easy - very true! Plz do hardcore mode or something like this!

-more serious consequences of stealing, murder
-More negative scenarios, like a sickness where the whole team gets sick, spoilage of raw food, ets
-rat traps (less gain)
-got axe = tons of wood by destroying furniture (less gain)
-medicine and preserves - i need only 10% of them, sell 90% for good price (worst rates of exchange)
-colder air

I think this dificulty is ok for new players but others need more challenging game.

p.s. i seen one player always sells most of his items (~70%) for preserves and raw meet, feeding his team a lot, and he was ok playing forward...

[Vagrant]

I don't think it's entirely fair or rational to say it's too easy because the RNG favored you once or twice.

I had a great game going and at day 27 one of my survivors left and stole 15 food, that's right 15! ... as well as some water and fuel, it was devastating, then winter started the next day ...

Had a similar run just recently where I had the worst luck ever, got raided like 6 nights in a row people were lethally wounded (fully barricaded-full weapons) used up 6 bandages in as many nights, it was brutal, barely survived.

Then there are the good old RNG loves me runs where I usually quit because it's like your experience where you get a string of good luck, hardly get raided and winter is a cake-walk.

I don't think much can be changed with difficulty, since if you change it, some scenarios will become impossible with the current RNG system.