Jump to content

Survival is not hard, but it's annoying.


Googz

Recommended Posts

Hey folks, i am mostly lurker here, but i would love to share opinion on survivor difficulty of this game. I really enjoyed it and i think some feedback is important on what can be improved. I remember buying this game when it was in a very raw state and enjoying it even in that time. 

 

Before anyone start telling me to adjust difficulty mode to i my preference - i already did it. The thing is i think survival mode should be balanced better. It should be hard and should stay hard, but it shouldn't be annoying to player to the point where you just don't enjoy the game anymore. 

 

I do believe survival difficulty is good approach, it challenges player and forces him to think twice about going for a loot run, about better escape plans and etc and etc. But i also think that in current state survival right now not offering any more challenge, but annoyance. I played around 10 to 15 different sessions where i survived on average around 2-3 months and died only due to boredom where i didn't care if i was overcrowded by zombies. OK, let's get fact straight: game right now is not hard, it's actually quite easy to play survival if you get right perks and use knife as your main weapon to kill zombies 1 by 1 (backstabbing is a bit OP in this game). Running and losing zombie sight is also a really good way to survive and offers almost guaranteed safety, since zombies in this game are kitable even when you walk (funny thing but according to my observations, if you sprint zombies get slight increase in speed as well). The things that kills survival is that zombies respawn and move around player in abnormal and almost unnatural way. Building walls and other stuff around your safe house makes practically no difference, since every 1.5-2 days you have to deal with packs of zombies (around 50+, might be wrong in numbers). It's not hard, you can deal with them if you are smart, but what is bad it makes game a routine, it takes away "gamey" feeling. I know some people might argue that this is what realistically you have to deal with zombies in urban areas, but currently it makes no sense. Every god damn day i had to kill zombies around my base who magically appear out of nowhere. I didn't move, i didn't went for a loot. They just respawn around house or move to it, as far as i understand zombie spawn mechanism in this game. People who played survival mode probably understand me, but right now if you survive to build a decent safe house, the only thing you keep doing every day is to repair walls and kills at the same time all zombies that spawned or moved to you during your sleep. Not to mention it takes almost entire day and sometimes you are forced to sleep when they are headbutting your fort. 

 

Also quite annoying part is amount of dead bodies you have around your fort. Sure it does create atmosphere of zombie apocalypse but we don't have a reliable way to dispose them right now (i know there are some works on it) and even if we had, grabbing each zombie to clean your territory (100+ eh?) and after few days doing it again (remember you have to kill them every time they spawn). 

 

I think spawn system is a big problem of this difficulty. I believe spawning and zombie migration should be in this difficulty, but it should either tuned down or balanced in "smart" way. Currently you just constantly fighting horde.

 

TLDR: 

 

Survivor difficulty is not hard, but annoying. You can survive if you want to, but later on it's just makes no sense since you can't get out of your safehouse, because every night zombies spawn or move to your location.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree that current "numbers" for zombies, migration and respawn makes game a bit annoying. If know that devs want us to have a hard time but throwing at us 100's zeds each day is not a perfect solution.

I would limit the zombie migration respawn and scale numbers of zeds and add other things that make a game harder like:

food more rare and you need to eat more each day.

Boredom and depresion to have bigger impact on our character (right now you can ignore it)

make sleep more important - sleep quality etc.

winter - you can freeze during the winter, get cold move slowet etc.

increase medical and health aspect - more kinds of sickness etc.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you're buliding in an area that constantly sees flocks of zombies attack your base, please consider relocating to a less popular area.

 

Good point. However, it takes away many options where player might want to build their safe house in a urban area (not necessary city centre) and want to clear area around it. Let's say this: urban area should be populated by zombies as it is now, but less frequently. Not every 12-15 hours, but let's say 3-5 days? It doesn't take a feeling of constant threat, but also give you short break to make loot run and prepare for next zombie migration or wave. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree that current "numbers" for zombies, migration and respawn makes game a bit annoying. If know that devs want us to have a hard time but throwing at us 100's zeds each day is not a perfect solution.

I would limit the zombie migration respawn and scale numbers of zeds and add other things that make a game harder like:

food more rare and you need to eat more each day.

Boredom and depresion to have bigger impact on our character (right now you can ignore it)

make sleep more important - sleep quality etc.

winter - you can freeze during the winter, get cold move slowet etc.

increase medical and health aspect - more kinds of sickness etc.

 

Completely agree with you. I think increasing difficulty in other game aspects is better solution, because it will actually force you start surviving. Food and water right now is a joke. You can live easily enough on all the food available in the houses and leftover from water even with Hungry and Thirsty perks. Currently you can even drink and eat as much as you want if you build yourself a decent farm, which is not hard to do within 2-3 month time frame.(honestly you can do it within 3-4 weeks). 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

If you're buliding in an area that constantly sees flocks of zombies attack your base, please consider relocating to a less popular area.

 

Good point. However, it takes away many options where player might want to build their safe house in a urban area (not necessary city centre) and want to clear area around it. Let's say this: urban area should be populated by zombies as it is now, but less frequently. Not every 12-15 hours, but let's say 3-5 days? It doesn't take a feeling of constant threat, but also give you short break to make loot run and prepare for next zombie migration or wave. 

 

All the same, maybe those options shouldn't always exist.

 

Further, zombie respawn hours are already set to 72 hours and require a 16 hour period of that area being unseen.

 

What you're actually having difficulty with is the redistribution of zombies (every 12 hours).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

food more rare and you need to eat more each day.

Boredom and depresion to have bigger impact on our character (right now you can ignore it)

make sleep more important - sleep quality etc.

winter - you can freeze during the winter, get cold move slowet etc.

increase medical and health aspect - more kinds of sickness etc.

 

It's still in alpha obviously, and these are good suggestions. I would love to see more survival against nature, especially once you get a base up and running it turns into just tending to what needs tending too.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

All the same, maybe those options shouldn't always exist.

 

Further, zombie respawn hours are already set to 72 hours and require a 16 hour period of that area being unseen.

 

What you're actually having difficulty with is the redistribution of zombies (every 12 hours).

Yes, but look at this in this way:

Hours to respawn on unseen area - 16 hours.

Redistribution of zombies - 12 hours.

If you will do simple math you'll know that there is a LOT of zombies spawning around your safehouse (not loaded parts of map) and a lot of these spawned zombies will come and visit you. +72 hours respawn even on parts where you are.

In general, you have new zombies around your safehouse *everyday*. If you're unlucky you may get new zombies respawned twice in only one day.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

All the same, maybe those options shouldn't always exist.

 

Further, zombie respawn hours are already set to 72 hours and require a 16 hour period of that area being unseen.

 

What you're actually having difficulty with is the redistribution of zombies (every 12 hours).

Yes, but look at this in this way:

Hours to respawn on unseen area - 16 hours.

Redistribution of zombies - 12 hours.

If you will do simple math you'll know that there is a LOT of zombies spawning around your safehouse (not loaded parts of map) and a lot of these spawned zombies will come and visit you. +72 hours respawn even on parts where you are.

In general, you have new zombies around your safehouse *everyday*. If you're unlucky you may get new zombies respawned twice in only one day.

 

Zombies dont respawn in a location recently seen by your player. 

 

Your issue is solely with migration not spawning

 

Does SP allow the same manipulation of zombie respawn and migration options as MP does?  I can open a file and alter the fuck out of zombies how they respawn, how the group up or horde up, how they migrate, how long for each of those things.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you're buliding in an area that constantly sees flocks of zombies attack your base, please consider relocating to a less popular area.

but its not louisville city center, were talking about small town outskirts. 3k-4,5k population, I expect big citys to be swarmed but small town or some farm far away to be attacked every day kills fun a bit.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

If you're buliding in an area that constantly sees flocks of zombies attack your base, please consider relocating to a less popular area.

but its not louisville city center, were talking about small town outskirts. 3k-4,5k population, I expect big citys to be swarmed but small town or some farm far away to be attacked every day kills fun a bit.

 

Held out for a few days near the spawn house without much trouble, simply by sneaking from building to building.

 

Not buying the "attacked every day" thing, really . . . Metaevents will happen, zombies will migraite, it's luck as to when it happens. If it helps you to explain where additional zombies come from, consider that they could well be migraiting accross the US at this point in the game.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There seems to be some variance here.  In 33.1 I definitely had issues with zombies constantly swarming me to the point that I felt like I was being hunted, even if no zombies were in sight and I was hiding.

 

My most recent game in 33.4 I have not had this issue.  They're around and after me somewhat, but not to the same annoyance as before.  Still keeps me on my toes though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you're buliding in an area that constantly sees flocks of zombies attack your base, please consider relocating to a less popular area.

but its not louisville city center, were talking about small town outskirts. 3k-4,5k population, I expect big citys to be swarmed but small town or some farm far away to be attacked every day kills fun a bit.

Held out for a few days near the spawn house without much trouble, simply by sneaking from building to building.

Not buying the "attacked every day" thing, really . . . Metaevents will happen, zombies will migraite, it's luck as to when it happens. If it helps you to explain where additional zombies come from, consider that they could well be migraiting accross the US at this point in the game.

dunno then, ill try few more times. but so far all my survival games remunds me last stand mode. 1 st day is ok but next morning when migration starts my house is attacked by 20+ zeds and i have to run away. No chance for farming, building, foraging etc.

like i said ill give it few more times before going back to sandbox. and yes i am sneaking most of the time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

If you're buliding in an area that constantly sees flocks of zombies attack your base, please consider relocating to a less popular area.

but its not louisville city center, were talking about small town outskirts. 3k-4,5k population, I expect big citys to be swarmed but small town or some farm far away to be attacked every day kills fun a bit.

 

Held out for a few days near the spawn house without much trouble, simply by sneaking from building to building.

 

Not buying the "attacked every day" thing, really . . . Metaevents will happen, zombies will migraite, it's luck as to when it happens. If it helps you to explain where additional zombies come from, consider that they could well be migraiting accross the US at this point in the game.

 

Few days is not enough, plus game checks for the amount of zombies in the area and tries to fill it by moving another horde to this location or spawning it. Basically if you kill only few zombies in the area and other are alive, you will be fine for a short period. However if you clear entire area you will get swarmed within 12-15 hours easily. Trust me, we are not making it up, several people already said that it's a thing... 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good thing this thread started, I also wanted to share my thoughts on why the game is annoying rather difficult.

Last session I played definitely pissed me off, because I still have the same problem I have in every single save: The way that zeds attack me and the "magical" zombie spawning mentioned before.

In the first one happens that every time a zombie scratches or bites me (it doesn't matter how often they break my char skin) the attack is in the groin. Every time. I was really angry at this on game's last session, because they always get me this way, I mean, they are merciless flesh eating monsters, not lustful corpses that came back from the dead. It's not even funny, I wouldn't complain much about this if they could attack me somewhere else, but it's just that every time they aim for my groin.

And now, the zed respawn part: I don't have any problems with them spawning from time to time, but it's the metagame that screws this up, because it always, and I quote, always drive them to my current location, makes me want to quit rather than resisting them. I know that this is for getting our char killed before reaching an endgame part of the game but... no, wait, you know what? It's done right, now I understand why the game kills me within a few in game hours or a week, because after that it becomes the same game that I've played for a long time: Water and electricity is down, search for cans of food, make walls, farm, die. Whenever I reach that point in the game I drink bleach to kill myself out of boredom.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As far as I can see, all those options (including Enigma Grey's reference to redistribution vs respawn) already exist in sandbox setting via the Advanced setting for zombie population. Just do some test on those variables and see what tickle your fancy.

 

I would investigate Enigma Grey's suggestion on redistribution first.

 

As for your concern, I can't comment further due to my own setting and current test (wildly different from yours).

 

P.S.: There is no shame in using a sandbox setting to tweak your game as you like it.  As you said, as long as it's challenging and forces you to think...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you find yourself killing zombies everyday just to protect your home, then you need relocating or a sledgehammer o.O

 

As far as I'm concerned, every major update since I jumped in on the PZ train (admittedly not that long ago) has made the game harder and more entertaining at the same time. I'm a bit sad about the sound issues in the latest IWBUMS right now, but you know, it's a beta build for an early access game, I can't really complain o.O

 

I understand it won't make everyone happy, but the devs never hid their intent to make survival ridiculously difficult and downright mean and evil. And I like it >: D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you find yourself killing zombies everyday just to protect your home, then you need relocating or a sledgehammer o.O

This. If you build in an area that, on the distribution map, is marked as high population, you're much more likely to see zombies try to fill in the holes in that area. Your choice of map location is as much a problem as the 12 hours for redistribution.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

All the same, maybe those options shouldn't always exist.

Further, zombie respawn hours are already set to 72 hours and require a 16 hour period of that area being unseen.

What you're actually having difficulty with is the redistribution of zombies (every 12 hours).

Yes, but look at this in this way:

Hours to respawn on unseen area - 16 hours.

Redistribution of zombies - 12 hours.

If you will do simple math you'll know that there is a LOT of zombies spawning around your safehouse (not loaded parts of map) and a lot of these spawned zombies will come and visit you. +72 hours respawn even on parts where you are.

In general, you have new zombies around your safehouse *everyday*. If you're unlucky you may get new zombies respawned twice in only one day.

Zombies dont respawn in a location recently seen by your player.

Your issue is solely with migration not spawning

Does SP allow the same manipulation of zombie respawn and migration options as MP does?

I can open a file and alter the fuck out of zombies how they respawn, how the group up or horde up, how they migrate, how long for each of those things.

Yes, zombies don't respawn recently seen by your player, but we're talking about endgame where all you need to do is build your base. Then, almost every part of the map wasn't visited by you recently.

No, it's not my issue, it's OP issue and i'm just simply giving proof that he is probably right using what Enigma said. And no, it's not only issue with migration, because without respawn there would be no zombies to migrate to another place. Isn't that simple??

MP? Did you even read what OP said? He was talking about survival so obviously about SP not MP. And like you said - if you play MP only then why you even talk about survival in SP?

P.S.: There is no shame in using a sandbox setting to tweak your game as you like it. As you said, as long as it's challenging and forces you to think...

OP said that he already did that. He is talking about balancing surival.

This. If you build in an area that, on the distribution map, is marked as high population, you're much more likely to see zombies try to fill in the holes in that area. Your choice of map location is as much a problem as the 12 hours for redistribution.

I would agree with you here, but.... Towns in Project Zomboid are REALLY small. Like there is... 5000 people in Muldraugh? After killing like 1000-2000 zombies you easily shouldn't have hordes everyday.

And if this game would be fully logical you should have even more zombies in the forests (especially in endgame) Why? Because these zombies must come from somewhere, right? They should migrate from other bigger cities. And after all town is dead - there is nothing that could make so loud noise to attract zombies from everywhere.

Sadly.... Game respawn zombies EVERYWHERE even in centre of town.... This is exactly why respawn mechanic is really broken. Due to one simple thing - zombies respawning in towns.

BTW

People, remember what OP said before saying things like "just use sandbox options".

And we're talking about game where you have nothing to do but only hide in your safehouse (i'm talking about ModdedTibby who said zombies don't respawn in recently visited parts of the map and about Enigma that liked his post about that)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sigh... I though i covered all possible answers in my original OP post, but i will make a short summary again:

 

1) Tweaking sandbox is an option, but here we talk about balance in Survival mode. After all, if we all play our own customized sandbox game, what is the reason to play survival difficulty? 

2) Currently survival is not difficult, but annoying and it happens because you are forced to kill hordes of zombies every time meta event or migration happens. People who really played survival on default setting should understand me. You are not surviving, you are practically playing zombie massacre game. 

3) The argument that you should choose less populated area might be a solution, but only a solution for reaching end game. Currently you can live indefinitely somewhere in the forest.  If the player wants to play somewhere in the outskirts of the city, they still have to deal with enormous hordes of zombies that migrate from other parts. I think it's important to give player options to live in the city, still making it harder than living in forest, but not forcing to deal with 100+ zombies each day.

4) I also think population of zombies right now is fine. You have a lot of zombies in cities, less zombies around forests, however zombie spawn/migration mechanism doesn't give you a feel that you can actually clean area. It's not just not rewarding anymore killing zombies. 

5) Constant migration/spawning doesn't make game harder. Many people survived long enough to have indefinite flow of water/food and decent defence. Current setting just take away the fun of killing zombies and makes it a routine. 

6) Game should be harder, but in other aspects. See what other people mentioned : food, water, medicine, tools. All of this is ridiculously easy to scavenge. It makes no sense to focus on unlimited zombies. 

 

I want to repeat this point: anyone can change setting as they want, but balancing survival is important as well. Feedback on survival difficulty can help devs to understand how they can actually make the game right now challenging. I believe that current zombie settings are not challenging but annoying to the point, where i just quit my session because i have to clear my safehouse surrounding entire day and each day. And it's not because it's hard to deal with large amount of hordes (which is not, if you are experienced player). 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1) The main point of Survival/Hardcore is to be tough and to match up with the dev's own vision of the game. If that's not fun for everyone, then that's OK.

2) You're not forced to kill them . . . You can also lure the majority away, if you so choose.

3) We'll just have to agree to disagree. I don't feel it's necessary to give the player the choice of easy city living.

 

4) It's not meant to. Cleaning is, generally, futile.

 

5) I've no answer for this. It feels like no matter what changes are made, people will just roll with them.

6) I'm always up for "more" everything.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The game isn't really meant to be Harvest Moon/ Rune Factory with zombies (though speaking of that, once NPCs come about I want a post-apocalyptic waifu to woo! XD)

 

I had an awesome moment today, managed to get to a level where I could make trap cages so I left my safehouse to plonk it in the nearby woods. The next morning I had to fight off an entire hoarde to get my rabbit, and I won! I got the rabbit but the cage trap was destroyed shortly thereafter.

 

Yeah, it was tough and trapping is nearly impossible now, but the awesome feeling of success made it worth it.

 

I'm still clearing 50 zombies off my fences EVERY day and I never have time to go on runs and that I don't like. I don't believe it is the migration settings as I cleared north of me yet the very next morning a hoarde came from up north, I headed north and found the area still clear, headed west and it was clear, headed east an yip, it was clear. WHERE did they come from if not portals from hell?

 

Edited the save file to disable spawning and guess what, no hoardes for days.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1) The main point of Survival/Hardcore is to be tough and to match up with the dev's own vision of the game. If that's not fun for everyone, then that's OK.

Like OP said - there is like huge difference beetwen tough and annoying. Killing zombies in PZ is so freakin' easy. With axe you can kill two zombies at one hit and like push 2 or 3. Making player deal with hundreds of zombies isn't a good way to make game harder. It's rather a way to force player to quit when there will be so many corpses on the ground that game will slow down.

And about that "dev's vision of the game". On one hand i agree -it's their game, but on other hand - if a lot of people are complaining about it then i think they should change it. After all from where they get the money? Exactly.

2) You're not forced to kill them . . . You can also lure the majority away, if you so choose.

Either way it takes some time. And if you'll lure them away they will come back in that or other way. Probably.

3) We'll just have to agree to disagree. I don't feel it's necessary to give the player the choice of easy city living.

It's not necessary but that doesn't mean every player living in some random house in the city should deal with so many zombies everyday. Like, why it's even a thing? It's DEAD town. Sure, it's easier for zombies to migrate in the city etc. but this shouldn't be the reason why you have to deal with so many zombies. You can't clean any are at all. Even if you would kill Muldraugh and West Point population you still would have to deal with zombies everyday, because they spawn inside of the town.

4) It's not meant to. Cleaning is, generally, futile.

Safehouses are pointless then. I would be OK with that, but only if we would have any kind of buildings that would help us kill the zombies. Sadly, we don't really have them and we can't clean areas to make them somewhat safe. At least for a few days.

5) I've no answer for this. It feels like no matter what changes are made, people will just roll with them.

There is a *really simple* solution - zombies can respawn only on edges of the map (new zombies from other cities, not population of the town ((i think that there is less than 5000 zombies in Muldraugh without respawning)))

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

 

All the same, maybe those options shouldn't always exist.

Further, zombie respawn hours are already set to 72 hours and require a 16 hour period of that area being unseen.

What you're actually having difficulty with is the redistribution of zombies (every 12 hours).

Yes, but look at this in this way:

Hours to respawn on unseen area - 16 hours.

Redistribution of zombies - 12 hours.

If you will do simple math you'll know that there is a LOT of zombies spawning around your safehouse (not loaded parts of map) and a lot of these spawned zombies will come and visit you. +72 hours respawn even on parts where you are.

In general, you have new zombies around your safehouse *everyday*. If you're unlucky you may get new zombies respawned twice in only one day.

Zombies dont respawn in a location recently seen by your player.

Your issue is solely with migration not spawning

Does SP allow the same manipulation of zombie respawn and migration options as MP does?

I can open a file and alter the fuck out of zombies how they respawn, how the group up or horde up, how they migrate, how long for each of those things.

Yes, zombies don't respawn recently seen by your player, but we're talking about endgame where all you need to do is build your base. Then, almost every part of the map wasn't visited by you recently.

No, it's not my issue, it's OP issue and i'm just simply giving proof that he is probably right using what Enigma said. And no, it's not only issue with migration, because without respawn there would be no zombies to migrate to another place. Isn't that simple??

MP? Did you even read what OP said? He was talking about survival so obviously about SP not MP. And like you said - if you play MP only then why you even talk about survival in SP?

P.S.: There is no shame in using a sandbox setting to tweak your game as you like it. As you said, as long as it's challenging and forces you to think...

OP said that he already did that. He is talking about balancing surival.

This. If you build in an area that, on the distribution map, is marked as high population, you're much more likely to see zombies try to fill in the holes in that area. Your choice of map location is as much a problem as the 12 hours for redistribution.

I would agree with you here, but.... Towns in Project Zomboid are REALLY small. Like there is... 5000 people in Muldraugh? After killing like 1000-2000 zombies you easily shouldn't have hordes everyday.

And if this game would be fully logical you should have even more zombies in the forests (especially in endgame) Why? Because these zombies must come from somewhere, right? They should migrate from other bigger cities. And after all town is dead - there is nothing that could make so loud noise to attract zombies from everywhere.

Sadly.... Game respawn zombies EVERYWHERE even in centre of town.... This is exactly why respawn mechanic is really broken. Due to one simple thing - zombies respawning in towns.

BTW

People, remember what OP said before saying things like "just use sandbox options".

And we're talking about game where you have nothing to do but only hide in your safehouse (i'm talking about ModdedTibby who said zombies don't respawn in recently visited parts of the map and about Enigma that liked his post about that)

 

Whats your point?  Its a zombie apocalypse game, zombies are going to respawn they need to respawn to bring that feel.  They are then going to migrate.  SP or MP that is still the basic concept being followed here. 

 

So again, ill reiterate the issue this person has isn't with zombie respawning AT HIS HOUSE its zombies moving his direction hour by hour because there are cells unseen by his character.  Can't argue with the settings that's how they work. 

 

Now yes the scene they choose may be low population based but i fail to see again where your point comes into play.  If you were not in the center of town 12 hours ago in game, would it not be realistic for zombies to move into that zone while you were gone?  Forget if they spawn or migrate.  Just think is 12-16 hours long enough for zombies to show up without explanation from somewhere?

 

I am not saying by any means the respawn system or migration system is perfect

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...