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World Famous W
May 25, 2007
Probation
Can't post for 6 days!
My favorite start was lab until whatever change it was to emp grenades went in. Made dealing with half the threats so, so much more dangerous

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That Guy Bob
Apr 30, 2009
What happened to emp grenades? Did they ever fix cardboard boxes and reach weapons? Or just chucking rocks at the turret guarding the exit?

Xand_Man
Mar 2, 2004

If what you say is true
Wutang might be dangerous


That Guy Bob posted:

What happened to emp grenades? Did they ever fix cardboard boxes and reach weapons? Or just chucking rocks at the turret guarding the exit?

You used to be able to cobble them together from random electronic scraps. Now you need a couple specific item that afiak only spawn in labs and are only used for EMP bombs. Realism!

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Counter question: What's the most overpowered starting build you can make?

Slaapaav
Mar 3, 2006

by Azathoth
high strength and not surrounded by things that want to kill you is pretty great? taking "drawbacks" like high metabolism and high thirst is basically cheating points.

frat boy doesnt cost many points and lets you start with a sports car, combine with casino resort start which even gimped characters can survive when they have a car waiting outside. its a really fun start imho because you sometimes have to do some pretty wild driving to get away from danger

Xand_Man
Mar 2, 2004

If what you say is true
Wutang might be dangerous


Near or far sighted are basically free points because you'll start with the appropriate glasses and you'll eventually have more contact lenses then you could ever need.

Truthteller is also good because there really aren't a lot of times you want/need to lie.

Vib Rib
Jul 23, 2007

God damn this shit is
fuckin' re-dic-a-liss

🍖🍖😛🍖🍖
Regarding farsighted/nearsighted I don't think I've ever had my glasses destroyed or knocked off or otherwise compromised.

That Guy Bob
Apr 30, 2009
And you can pick both and spawn with bifocal glasses.

MonkeyforaHead
Apr 7, 2006


God, you vindictive bitch, why can't I ever have any "me" time

So my progression through this game has historically been: get essentials, choose a hideout, kill something big and smoke a ton of meat, scavenge more stuff, get skills up, restore an RV to live in, rove around, wonder what the hell I'm looking for, find something swarming with eldritch horrors that I have no prayer of dealing with, get confused, give up, stop playing. I'm currently at the "restore an RV" part of this cycle (and christ, how did they manage to make getting Mechanical from 0->1 EVEN WORSE) and I have to ask... what AM I looking for?? I know a stack of bionics and/or beneficial mutations are supposed to be the means by which you get your character built up to an actual force to be reckoned with, but I have never once found bionics or mutagen through exploration.

I've also never found enough ammunition to make guns worthwhile because the military surplus stores seem to be hard coded to not spawn with anything useful in them, and I have no idea what's involved in crafting your own but I assume it must be an intensively laborious process for even a few bullets.

MonkeyforaHead fucked around with this message at 22:00 on Apr 25, 2021

Vib Rib
Jul 23, 2007

God damn this shit is
fuckin' re-dic-a-liss

🍖🍖😛🍖🍖
The key to getting ammo is to destroy a single turret and receive hundreds of free bullets. It was toned down but it's still a huge amount.

Slaapaav
Mar 3, 2006

by Azathoth
one game i took a flintlock musket from a museum, went up to an army roadblock in the middle of the night and killed the turrets with the musket. then i recovered 2000 rounds of 5.56 which i used to clear out an entire army base nearby.

goatsestretchgoals
Jun 4, 2011

MonkeyforaHead posted:

I've also never found enough ammunition to make guns worthwhile because the military surplus stores seem to be hard coded to not spawn with anything useful in them, and I have no idea what's involved in crafting your own but I assume it must be an intensively laborious process for even a few bullets.

Milsurp stores are great for MREs which basically trivialize food once you get a stack of them. Ammo comes from turrets, gun stores, and the parts of military bases other than the turrets outside.

Fake edit: You can also find some other end game gear at milsurp stores like leg ammo pouches and ESAPI vests.

Neophyte
Apr 23, 2006

perennially
Taco Defender
for the initial guns, look for soldier body sites - they're the ones with (obv) soldier zombies and dropped rifles on the ground. Most will have a few rounds in them, more than enough to take down other soldiers or snipe a turret at night.

For bionic/mutagens, find a scientist body site, get a science ID card, and look for labs (or research institutes) on the map. RI will almost require you to get a shitload of ammo to kill off all the guards around it, while the classic lab entrance needs the ID card to get in without a turret in your face.

For what to do in lab runs, watch some of the Vormithrax LPs. He's got labrunning down to a science :rimshot:

Telsa Cola
Aug 19, 2011

No... this is all wrong... this whole operation has just gone completely sidewaysface

Neophyte posted:



For what to do in lab runs, watch some of the Vormithrax LPs. He's got labrunning down to a science :rimshot:

It's grab literally eveyrthing thats not bolted down and toss it into your house sizes APC yeah?

Cool Dad
Jun 15, 2007

It is always Friday night, motherfuckers

I played this years and years ago before vehicles were added and there were only a handful of jobs. I picked it up again, grabbed a list of mods from some post in this thread, and this thing is goddamn punishing and I no longer have any idea what I'm doing.

I tried a couple of standard starts with evacuee survivors with high strength and fleet footed, light step, and night vision and died horribly to random things every time. Well, if I'm having trouble getting geared up, I thought, I'll try the start where you're all cybered up but have a cranial bomb and at least maybe go a day or so without dying. I was killed by a dragon in the woods so that didn't work out. I don't even know if that's from the magic mod or just something the game has now.

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

This might help you to get back into the swing of things and learn how the game operates now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OetlPqxcO1Y

Also dragons are from magic iirc. Might wanna go easy on the mods that add more stuff before you're comfortable with the state of the base game


Pro-tip for the ammo chat: Check every military vehicle if possible. Mounted guns often have ammo left in their belts

Slaapaav
Mar 3, 2006

by Azathoth

Enola Gay-For-Pay posted:

I played this years and years ago before vehicles were added and there were only a handful of jobs. I picked it up again, grabbed a list of mods from some post in this thread, and this thing is goddamn punishing and I no longer have any idea what I'm doing.

I tried a couple of standard starts with evacuee survivors with high strength and fleet footed, light step, and night vision and died horribly to random things every time. Well, if I'm having trouble getting geared up, I thought, I'll try the start where you're all cybered up but have a cranial bomb and at least maybe go a day or so without dying. I was killed by a dragon in the woods so that didn't work out. I don't even know if that's from the magic mod or just something the game has now.

first i always craft a cudgel if a start with a cutting tool: go towards the nearest forest and (S)mash down a young tree then (B)utcher the bigger sticks down to the size needed for a cudgel. shift+6 to craft

scouting during the day is very important because it allows you to spot zombies at long range so they dont aggro onto you. you want to locate a building that has very few zombies around, look for corners and edges:


I use (x) to look around: the front has a bunch of zombies so it will be pretty risky trying to enter.


press (+) to check what you are wearing.

if i get into a fight i should (d)rop the bag because torso encumberance matters a lot for melee fighting ( 10 is suicidal for a unskilled character with 8/8/8/8 stats)

a few zombies get attracted by barking dogs, trying to enter the house now might end up getting you completely surrounded by zombies!


i kill two of them that get separated from the rest. an unskilled character with torso encumberance 1 and a cudgel can be quite capable vs zombies in small numbers.

Xand_Man
Mar 2, 2004

If what you say is true
Wutang might be dangerous


Implanted night vision, a bow and night time is easy mode. It takes a bit to kill things but most zombies will die before they realize you are there.

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Was the nerf to bows reverted? Bows not sucking is one of the main reasons why I stay on 0.E

MonkeyforaHead
Apr 7, 2006


God, you vindictive bitch, why can't I ever have any "me" time

I just noticed you can't craft the compound bows anymore (save the one superbow that requires 18 STR to draw), which makes me sad.

megane
Jun 20, 2008



I assume some dev thought for a few moments about killing zombies with a bow, went "anh, that's silly" and so bows are pointless trash forever and any suggestion to improve them is shot down as "unrealistic."

SpacePope
Nov 9, 2009

How it's supposed to work since the nerf is that bows get super low base damage, but a huge crit multiplier. This should make them good against unarmored targets and bad vs armored ones, but in practice they mostly end up being completely useless against everything.

Manager Hoyden
Mar 5, 2020

megane posted:

I assume some dev thought for a few moments about killing zombies with a bow, went "anh, that's silly" and so bows are pointless trash forever and any suggestion to improve them is shot down as "unrealistic."

This is why Bright Nights will always be the best version

With the main line you always have to worry about Kevin and his clique hearing you're having fun and the fun thing being removed/nerfed

Leal
Oct 2, 2009
I've seen competitive archers and they're pretty swole but loving lol at needing such high strength you either need to dump stat everything else, mutate or get bionics to use a composite bow

Slaapaav
Mar 3, 2006

by Azathoth
the best crossbow in the game with broadheads can easily do 300 damage when it crits causing moose to explode in a shower of gibs.

Manager Hoyden
Mar 5, 2020

If you turn off zombie evolution, can the end-game variants still be found anywhere?

RazzleDazzleHour
Mar 31, 2016

Manager Hoyden posted:

This is why Bright Nights will always be the best version

With the main line you always have to worry about Kevin and his clique hearing you're having fun and the fun thing being removed/nerfed

Yeah I JUST started a game of Bright Nights yesterday and I like how similar it is to the version I learned the game on. I tried to play like a half-year ago after all the pockets and nutrition changes and I was like gently caress this this sucks. But, it's still got some of the really nice changes they've done since then. Houses used to have almost nothing in them and now you can go inside and find a fair amount of food and tools, and it's a mega upgrade from looking at your starting location and doing a reset if you don't see a supermarket or a river

Vib Rib
Jul 23, 2007

God damn this shit is
fuckin' re-dic-a-liss

🍖🍖😛🍖🍖
Increasing the amount of loot globally is one of the best things CDDA ever did. Alongside fundamentally rehauling the way towns generate, it completely changed the game's feel and early progression, and for the better. I'd rank that alongside being able to automatically sort loot as among the top changes over the last few years. That and the more expanded and readable UIs.

SpacePope posted:

How it's supposed to work since the nerf is that bows get super low base damage, but a huge crit multiplier. This should make them good against unarmored targets and bad vs armored ones, but in practice they mostly end up being completely useless against everything.
Bows get incredibly good headshots/crits and can easily take down zombies and fast if they kick in. The problem is that you can't even get critical hits unless you meet a damage minimum, which most early bows don't meet.
Also, the self bow you can craft early on is so pathetically weak it's literally just there to practice archery with.

That said, throwing is still very viable early on, especially with the sling and staff sling you can make. And most characters will want at least a little throwing skill for when it's time to throw a grenade and you don't want to end your entire run by dropping it at your own feet.

Rynoto
Apr 27, 2009
It doesn't help that I'm fat as fuck, so my face shouldn't be shown off in the first place.

Manager Hoyden posted:

If you turn off zombie evolution, can the end-game variants still be found anywhere?

Yes. You'll see a scattering of high-ends out in the world with a higher concentration in end-game locations. If you do it you should really either increase armour or spawn density massively to have any sort of challenge at end-game. 50x spawn when entering a lab for the first time is a fun experience.

nftyw
Dec 27, 2006

It is a game... where you will put your life on the line.
Lipstick Apathy
I found a stone golem wandering around the outskirts of a town and had a nice time kiting it thru a few city blocks on a bike, watching hordes of zombies try to bite and claw a giant moving rock (they couldn't) and it only died because of what I'm presuming was shock damage from a electric zombie. Sad times.

Vib Rib
Jul 23, 2007

God damn this shit is
fuckin' re-dic-a-liss

🍖🍖😛🍖🍖
Zombie evolution really needs a better soft cap or something, because on the one hand I like having an easier early game and a harder late game, but this thing will, if left unchecked, turn everything into kevlar hulks and shocker brutes eventually. I really feel like any horde should be primarily normal zombies, even i endgame, rather than 90% juggernauts and the like.
Also I wonder if it would work if difficulty scaled by distance from your initial spawn, rather than over time. So you'd still have an easier start, but as you wear out supplies and have to travel further to loot, you meet stronger resistance. I mostly ask because knowing the zombie evolution clock is always overhead makes me stress a bit about "wasted" time in the game, like I always have to be doing things as efficiently as possible and can't say, take a week off, even though I know in my head the timer isn't that demanding.

MonkeyforaHead
Apr 7, 2006


God, you vindictive bitch, why can't I ever have any "me" time

GFDI I tried Bright Nights to see what the differences are like and I do generally like it better but it uses the old system where as soon as you put something down (say, a backpack, with 30 assorted bits of junk in it, so you can fight stuff) everything in that item automatically spills out all over the ground on that tile :negative:

Vib Rib
Jul 23, 2007

God damn this shit is
fuckin' re-dic-a-liss

🍖🍖😛🍖🍖
Yeah, using a vague "total volume" instead of individual pockets is a big intentional design choice, one of the keystone ones designed to distinguish it from DDA.

RabidWeasel
Aug 4, 2007

Cultures thrive on their myths and legends...and snuggles!
There's definitely a solid middle ground between the extremely clumsy pockets system and the "inventory space is magical hammerspace" system but I guess it's not going to happen.

Things like having individual left / right pockets and half a dozen different compartments in backpacks is just unnecessary for anything other than the most obsessive simulationism

Manager Hoyden
Mar 5, 2020

Rynoto posted:

Yes. You'll see a scattering of high-ends out in the world with a higher concentration in end-game locations. If you do it you should really either increase armour or spawn density massively to have any sort of challenge at end-game. 50x spawn when entering a lab for the first time is a fun experience.

Yeah, I'll try a super spawn rate game to see how that goes. The end game zombies are just so boring at this point.

I wish there was a big, polished mod that added a bunch of zombie types and evolution trees. I think Dinomod is the only thing that comes close.

Spoggerific
May 28, 2009
At least compared to a couple years ago, when I first played the game, they've added quite a few zombie types and I'm pretty happy with the variety of zombies in the game at this point. I don't think things like gasoline and pupating zombies or dissoluted devourers were in when I played last.

Personally I find clearing out towns in order to get to points of interest like tower labs completely dull after a little bit. It ends up being real-life hours of shoot a dozen M4 magazines, smash a hundred zombie corpses, go back to base and reload, rinse, repeat. I want more challenge too, but I don't think pumping up the spawn numbers is the way to go.

To me I think part of the problem is that there aren't a lot of enemies with interesting behavior patterns. Sure, there are zombies with unique abilities, like pupating zombies exploding into those little flying guys, shockers shooting lightning, and technicians stealing your weapons, but they're all still just mindless zombies, and they just charge towards you and die.

What about enemies that do interesting things, or behave in different ways? Something, anything that encourages player interaction beyond "plink at range and back up when they get close". Make zombies that are hard to see at night flee from daylight and hide in houses. Add real living necromancers in magiclysm that can control zombies to make them smarter, or mix in some kind of non-zombie enemies inside cities that are a little more intelligent, and come at the player in groups and use tactics. Feral humans are a decent example of the kind of enemy I think cities need more of, since they throw rocks at you and have weapons, but they still just kind of mindlessly charge at the player.

There are decently interesting encounters in other parts of the game, like certain lab variants, but entirely too much of the average player's time will be spent fighting completely mindless enemies from complete safety once they get some ammo. I know it's a zombie survival game and some of that should be expected, but it's disappointing to see such a wide variety of zombies without much actual variety in gameplay when you encounter them.

MonkeyforaHead
Apr 7, 2006


God, you vindictive bitch, why can't I ever have any "me" time

Vib Rib posted:

Yeah, using a vague "total volume" instead of individual pockets is a big intentional design choice, one of the keystone ones designed to distinguish it from DDA.

It'd be nice to have the vague total volume system and not have everything spill onto the floor when I put a pack down :v:

I mean I get that the issue is "YOU are the pocket, and extra packs you pick up just magically make the pocket size larger" but still. I'm a little surprised it isn't just a toggle in the world options when creating the world, but I guess it'd be too cumbersome to try and maintain both. The thing that aggravated me about the individual pocket system wasn't "all of your items go into different containers", it was "now that each container is a defined entity, items have weight, volume, AND length properties to restrict what they can go into". Although there was that time that I was smoking a joint while crossing town, put my backpack down, and it suddenly caught fire because the joint was technically in the backpack while I was smoking it :pseudo:

MonkeyforaHead fucked around with this message at 17:59 on Apr 27, 2021

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Vib Rib posted:

Bows get incredibly good headshots/crits and can easily take down zombies and fast if they kick in.
Yeah that is the busted aspect of bows in 0.E. Crits are just flat out overtuned and it becomes very noticeable once you can wield something stronger than the composite bow. But the composite bow itself is mostly in a good place there I think. 3-5 shots to kill a tough zombie with wooden bodkin arrows and mediocre skill seems fair to me. The crits still spike too much but the baseline seems balanced for what it is. I have the soft suspicion that a major factor behind the nerf was to get rid of a good and infinite ranged weapon that was easy to acquire and use :tinfoil:

MonkeyforaHead posted:

It'd be nice to have the vague total volume system and not have everything spill onto the floor when I put a pack down :v:
Project zomboid has this and it is indeed very nice but I have no idea if the cdda code could handle it without massive amounts of work

Vib Rib
Jul 23, 2007

God damn this shit is
fuckin' re-dic-a-liss

🍖🍖😛🍖🍖

Tin Tim posted:

I have the soft suspicion that a major factor behind the nerf was to get rid of a good and infinite ranged weapon that was easy to acquire and use :tinfoil:
"The only thing we care about is realism! We always have to prioritize realism and granularity over what's 'fun', and over good game design. It's not about balance, it's about what makes sense. That's why we literally don't put in new changes unless someone has the science and hard data to back them up. That's just how it has to be.
...Unless of course the realistic thing would be too fun or easy. Then we have to bend realism in favor of balance!"

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Manager Hoyden
Mar 5, 2020

Vib Rib posted:

"The only thing we care about is realism! We always have to prioritize realism and granularity over what's 'fun', and over good game design. It's not about balance, it's about what makes sense. That's why we literally don't put in new changes unless someone has the science and hard data to back them up. That's just how it has to be.
...Unless of course the realistic thing would be too fun or easy. Then we have to bend realism in favor of balance!"

This is a free game developed by amateurs so I'm not going to criticize TOO much, but I have to wonder about the type of person who thinks end-game content isn't important but pocket simulation, vitamin deficiencies, and (horribly) simulated weight gain are all necessary and cool.

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