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Nerf the player.


Svarog

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Disclaimer: This is a critique by a singleplayer mode player who considers himself advanced, I love PZ, I love this community and I have great respect for the developers, this is not hate.

Seriously. The player is so OP I was thinking about posting this on the Bug Tracker. [Edit: I did, some of it]

There is a lot of talk about how the game should kill us before we reach the "end-game" (Or there was in mondoids) but the game doesn't even try. Seriously. I know it's EA but to be honest when it comes to updates, we keep getting more and more stuff that will help us survive, not kill us.

Farming, Carpentry, Foraging, Trapping etc. All of those things were added, Combat Overhaul, which, if my recent experience with ancient builds is right, made combat a ton more easy for the player.

"This is how you died"

Of boredom? After killing hundreds of zombies with no effort and setting up my fortress, with a huge cabbage farm? With electricity generators coming? A ton of, likely, OP weapons like Molotovs and Pipe Bombs?

Now that we have all those awesome stuff that makes us live longer why not Nerf the player and buff the zombies? I'm not asking for "Survival" mode being filled with runners. But we must admit to ourselves that zombies are ridiculously pathetic for a Zombie Survival Game.

A lot of issues with difficulty could be fixed with relative ease.

My ideas:

1: No single weapon should be allowed to hit more than 1 zombie at a time unless it's an Axe and it really does go clean through one zed, killing it and hitting the next one. Baseball Bats are lightsabers atm.

2: How can I push more than one zombie? Midichlorians? "This isn't the brains you are looking for"

3: Fast shamblers need to be able to catch up to a walking player. Runners can't be outranned but both Shamblers and Fast Shamblers can be outwalked.

4: Exhausted moodle should come much faster when running, we can all run ridiculous distances before it pops up. Cardio is really not that easy to get, most people can't run for hours.

5: Make nights darker, seriously limiting the player's FOV, I always feel like I have Splinter Cell goggles on. Older builds had everything the character does not see fade to complete black, bring it back, nights were scary!

6: Decrease the HP of Doors and Windows, I swear some doors are indestructible to zombies and they should break windows much, much faster, barricading makes us invincible. That and zombies tend to give up before they do any real damage because a gunshot sound played.

Not so easy to implement ideas.

1: Zombie migration\respawn buff, they don't do either which makes me think that the metagame system is broken. I tested the respawn lately, I feel it's broken. Also, I walked into a house that had 5+ zeds in it, I ran because panic, when I came back they all dissappeared, no broken windows and doors, broke my immersion.

PZ is an awesome game, it has megatons of potential, I am not a guy that believes magical NPCs will fix this stuff, they will add a ton depth to the game, sure. But those problems will persist and I will forever argue they need to be taken care of first. Not last, after 100th update that allows us all to live longer thanks to more awesome crafting, farming and foraging.

Traits Overhaul did help but it did not even come close to helping enough. Lately we don't need to break our weapons thanks to being able to stomp zombies when they fall with our boot. A baseball bat lasts me 5x longer than it used to.

Focus on killing me before you give me generators and bombs, make it rewarding to survive long enough to get those tools that will make it easy for me. Zombies really don't need to know where I am to do this, they just need to be a threat.

PS: I promise this is my last "Zombies are Easy" rant.

 

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I completely agree. If anyone has played C:DDA, you would remember that depending on the profession that you choose, you can only craft certain items. Now I know we have the whole leveling thing, but if a chef finds some wood, a hammer, and some nails, he would most likely not be able to make ANY type of wall. Maybe with the skill books you could make them unlock recipes as well? So this way my chef could read a book and follow the insrtuctions to make his crappy wall. Maybe you could even limit what level of skills certain professions can reach, making people's choice really hard with proffesions. Say I want to make rain barrels, but if I choose carpenter I will never be able to learn how to properly farm. This way, people will literally not be able to live as long as they do now, no matter how good they are.

Another thing: "Proper" zombies will only die by the demolishing of their heads. Maybe make at least an option for head damage only? When 3D models come in, it would be cool to be able to cut off arms and legs with bladed weapons too...

Anyways, just food for thought :)

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I do have to agree that I find the game really easy most of the time and there is a lot of stuff that sticks out (even just tiny bugs and annoyances) that would spam the tracker if I were to report them. Anyways, I agree. I don't see how a chef for example could saw logs and instantly be able to make walls and chairs, doors, etc. Most of this is pretty accurate, I can choose something like a chef and not focus at all on cooking and become an amazing carpenter capable of building a fortress with farms and such that's impenetrable (at the moment since zombies aren't a threat when that's done). I don't think we should be locked out of the game in that respect but it should be a much slower progress to get there. 

 

If you get the supplies you really can make a fortress within about a week even if you're not a carpenter and then no horde ever comes so you're just stuck like that with not much to do.

 

I really shouldn't have written this at almost 12AM, I'm prepared to wake up to my disastrous unrelated post in the morning, aren't I? 

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Another thing: "Proper" zombies will only die by the demolishing of their heads. Maybe make at least an option for head damage only? When 3D models come in, it would be cool to be able to cut off arms and legs with bladed weapons too...

I used to Play a ton of Fallout Tactics, if I can say anything, that game had a great aiming system that PZ should copy. You could go and fire blind, maybe hitting something, to me shooting in PZ feels like shooting blind in FT in real time mode. Cursor could change into crossahir when we go over a zombie\player, regardless of whether we use melee or ranged weapon so we know we are targeting a certain thing. With a system for targeting certain parts of the body. Either like Fallout or Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader, if anyone played the second one, you can make your character aim for a certain body part. Big chance for Torso, smaller for specific body parts. It would help PvP too, small chance for insta-kill with headshot or aim for torso\limbs with bigger chance to incapacitate.

Devs, play Fallout: Tactics, see how combat looks, it could work really well in PZ in my opinion.

A combat overhaul is what we need. Not more crafting, anims and NPCs, we need a proper combat overhaul to make the game harder, Imagine killing two NPCs with an Axe. Silly eh?

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Anyways, I agree. I don't see how a chef for example could saw logs and instantly be able to make walls and chairs, doors, etc. Most of this is pretty accurate, I can choose something like a chef and not focus at all on cooking and become an amazing carpenter capable of building a fortress with farms and such that's impenetrable (at the moment since zombies aren't a threat when that's done). I don't think we should be locked out of the game in that respect but it should be a much slower progress to get there. 

This sounds good. I agree that we shouldn't be COMPLETELY locked out. I think the learning process of figuring out a new skill should begin with reading books and guides in game. You can then unlock the craft for cheap walls. Practice there a little bit until you reach the next level of carpentry (or whatever skill it is). Now go read the next level of books to learn how to make better walls and cheap furniture. Continue this process (which should take very long) until you are finally at the last stage of carpentry. This process, depending on your proffesion, should take up to a month or two to complete.

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Good constructive rants !

 

You also inspired me to come up with some ideas to improve the game.

 

- Swing a bat or axe a few to many time and it will exhausted you to the point where you won't able to run. Right now you're like God of War.

 

- Weapon should break faster or have a chance to break like a butter knife upon impact and it doesn't matter what weapon, it will have a chance to break permanently if you abuse it.

 

- Need more ambushing zombies. Put them behind door where they'll bite the player neck if they enter a room carelessly.

 

 

Basically the game need to manipulate the "Supply and demand" by starving the player of things they need the most and making them go out constantly to salvage ever bit they can find to survive and they'll lost it all when the zombie hoard visit them.

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1: No single weapon should be allowed to hit more than 1 zombie at a time unless it's an Axe and it really does go clean through one zed, killing it and hitting the next one. Baseball Bats are lightsabers atm.

But things that you hit in real life don't exist in isolation, either. Hitting multiple things, depending on the mass of the weapon and the force of the swing is realistic.

2: How can I push more than one zombie? Midichlorians? "This isn't the brains you are looking for"

People happen to be heavy, poorly balanced things that can be shoved. Being in a group isn't much of an advantage, particularly if you're also undead.

3: Fast shamblers need to be able to catch up to a walking player. Runners can't be outranned but both Shamblers and Fast Shamblers can be outwalked.

Doesn't fit with the lore. I'd rather see zombies act as larger, wider obstacles, rather than tight-knit groups.

4: Exhausted moodle should come much faster when running, we can all run ridiculous distances before it pops up. Cardio is really not that easy to get, most people can't run for hours.

Fortunately, you can change the speed of this in Sandbox, but it already happens. The more punishing exhaustion was shunned.

5: Make nights darker, seriously limiting the player's FOV, I always feel like I have Splinter Cell goggles on. Older builds had everything the character does not see fade to complete black, bring it back, nights were scary!

You may want to determine if shaders are working for your system. If not, you may want to see if your graphics card software suite (if applicable) has a gamma option to adjust this, preferably with per-application settings. PZ does need a gamma slider . . .
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-snip-

 

I disagree. I always said you can't judge difficulty right now. The game isn't even in a finished state so for multiple reasons saying it's too easy right this second is irrelevant. We have no idea what impact NPC's will have and I vaguely remember devs stating zombies have always been just a background threat anyway. In other words, you're fighting against the elements while fighting against NPC's while surviving the zombies. 

 

At the start it's insanely hard. As time progresses they're only a moderate threat and the occasional catastrophe. But one day you do get unlucky enough either due to laziness or just sheer desperation that you did get bit. I think you're coming at this from the wrong angle, it isn't that the game isn't hard enough. It's that the game isn't finished and the difficult part has yet to begin. 

 

Lets see how calm you are when NPC's molotov that generator of yours that you think is keeping you so comfy. ;) Bet the game wont be easy then. lol

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EA? Go home you're drunk.

I meant Early Access, not Electronic Ass if that's what you thought. Which means I recognize the game is not finished, may contain bugs and may be unbalanced. Wait... there isn't any difference because both EA games tend to have that.

Anyway, I made myself a mod that nerfs the weapons and pushing to something like I described, you can download it, I might tweak it further but just removing the ability to kill multiple zombies in one swing made the game much harder and hordes a lot more scary. 
 

-snip-

1: Then it's not conveyed well enough, tome, it really feels wrong and OP as it is, animations might fix it, we'll see.

2: I do see a point but pushing zombies away does not so much create a domino effect which would be nice and understandable but it gives an extremely easy way to push away 3 zombies in three different directions at once and allow the player to pretty much escape the grasp of any horde.

3. Well, a sandbox options that gives zombies that cannot be outwalked would be nice. And well, they are not really obstacles if you can kill them easily as opposed to being forced to distract and really avoid them.

5. Shaders do work for me but I don't like the way the game looks when they are applied, admittedly, the nights do become much darker with them on but that's not really what I meant.

-snip-

Just because the game is not finished doesn't mean I don't get to criticize the difficulty as it is atm. Like I said, I recognize the game is not finished but why not add some placeholder difficulty before NPCs come in?

Will NPCs make the game harder? Most definitely, they will make resources harder to find and will make fortresses not so safe but if things stay the way they are when it comes to living vs undead then it will be player vs NPCs with all undead slain long ago. Zombies need to be a threat, they can be a background threat but they need to be a threat of some sort. They aren't, and if NPCs will have good brains then we can take zombies out of the equation completely.

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Add Dogs!

 

We still don't have 3D models for all weapons ^^'

 

Dogs, Deers and other animals models are not soon to be added, I bet those will come after NPC Update  ;-)

 

a sandbox options that gives zombies that cannot be outwalked would be nice

 

Nice ? It would be awesome !

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I aggre with MrZombifiedGamer. You can't judge diffuculty of game now. It's early acces after all and many many things are still not in game.

Also for me weapons have really unlogical level of endurance. I have axes that i used for ages, that my father used and they are still functional and in good shape after ~20 years. They need sharpening once in a while and that's all. Now in game i chopped like 20 trees and my axe is destroyed. Same thing with baseball bat, like seriously after 100hits it's broken.

 

If you want game harder then make it more realistic, simple.

Don't come with unlogical, not realistic ideas to magically solve the problem.

For example farming.

If growing carrots will take 5months like in real life things would be not so easy right? and same with all others plants.

 

Also zombies numbers.

At start game there should be ~7k zombies (if you add number of people in 2 cities) and they should not spawn until like 2-3months when large hordes from bigger cities start travel in countryside (zombie hordes from East Coast). So they will spawn at edges of map ( on roads not in forest) and will travel through city to find something.

 

For me exhausting system is good now.

Eating system need rework but it's planned already.

So be patient and wait, there is still much work to do.

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The game will get more challenging with proper zombie migration, NPCs and of course the "Sadistic AI Director".

I dont think zombies have to be a lot stronger or the player weaker. They just need to have more impact on the player and his actions.

 

But I agree with the "outwalking a zombie" part and the 360° combat.

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There's really nothing wrong with the Zombies, they're based on Romero lore so they're supposed to be slow and stupid and only dangerous in large groups, if you get caught by surprise, or do something careless.

 

Right now the only thing I think is really out of whack is exhaustion. There really isn't much of an impact for even major exhaustion aside from a small decrease in run speed, you have to get to extreme before you're too tired to run and that's really hard to do unless you took obese as a trait or are carrying too much stuff.

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EA? Go home you're drunk.

I meant Early Access, not Electronic Ass if that's what you thought. Which means I recognize the game is not finished, may contain bugs and may be unbalanced. Wait... there isn't any difference because both EA games tend to have that.

Anyway, I made myself a mod that nerfs the weapons and pushing to something like I described, you can download it, I might tweak it further but just removing the ability to kill multiple zombies in one swing made the game much harder and hordes a lot more scary. 

 

-snip-

1: Then it's not conveyed well enough, tome, it really feels wrong and OP as it is, animations might fix it, we'll see.

2: I do see a point but pushing zombies away does not so much create a domino effect which would be nice and understandable but it gives an extremely easy way to push away 3 zombies in three different directions at once and allow the player to pretty much escape the grasp of any horde.

3. Well, a sandbox options that gives zombies that cannot be outwalked would be nice. And well, they are not really obstacles if you can kill them easily as opposed to being forced to distract and really avoid them.

5. Shaders do work for me but I don't like the way the game looks when they are applied, admittedly, the nights do become much darker with them on but that's not really what I meant.

-snip-

Just because the game is not finished doesn't mean I don't get to criticize the difficulty as it is atm. Like I said, I recognize the game is not finished but why not add some placeholder difficulty before NPCs come in?

Will NPCs make the game harder? Most definitely, they will make resources harder to find and will make fortresses not so safe but if things stay the way they are when it comes to living vs undead then it will be player vs NPCs with all undead slain long ago. Zombies need to be a threat, they can be a background threat but they need to be a threat of some sort. They aren't, and if NPCs will have good brains then we can take zombies out of the equation completely.

 

 

(Sorry for the long quote idk how to delete the others without deleting yours.) Okay, fair enough. You can criticize the game as is at the moment. Didn't mean to imply you couldn't. What I meant was that it's counter productive. You're essentially criticizing something that is going to be fixed anyway or is planned on being fixed. 

 

What I mean is this. If NPC's are released and the game still isn't difficult enough, then dig right in. But at least give it a fair assessment with everything that is planned in first. It's hard for us to criticize when we haven't even seen exactly what the finished product will have. That doesn't mean you can't, but do be more mindful. 

 

However, I will say this. It would certainly be easier for us to criticize if we knew exactly how much the difficulty would change with NPC's being implemented. But I assume there is really no way of knowing such a thing. 

 

Also, just a side note. I think being able to out walk a zombie fit the lore properly. That would be what PZ considers a 'proper' zombie and it would do absolutely nothing for difficulty except break the lore. In most zombie movies being able to out walk the dead is a common theme and the threat comes from large hordes moving up and surrounding you. Not the speed at which they move.  lol That's just my opinion though.

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