Nerf to player strength or buff to zombies?

[rachel]

I haven't played in a long time and there have been many updates since then, I guess since spring 2017 or so.

It seemed as if I couldn't shove zombies off as easily last night and managed to die on day 2. Has this changed, or am I just remembering wrong? I felt weaker and like I couldn't break free from 4 of them. Did they nerf us and make it more realistic to get overpowered by a small number?

[Cymon]

It depends of the difficulty you were playing. Also, sometimes i can one shot a zombie and some other time, i can struggle just to push 1 single zombies. It depends on many factors.

[WillieSea]

At the start when you have not leveled up your skills yet, your not going to be able to do much of anything. You may be remembering a game where you had leveled up your skills, making things easier.

[the-phil]

At some point there was a change which seemed quite noticeable to me. Unless you have a profession with a strength buff or grab stout or strong traits your ability to push back and knock over zombies appears to be less effective from many patches ago.

There are also other things you need to account for like how well fed you are, your weight (if you are underweight or obese), if you have any fatigue and possibly other factors (as others mentioned difficutly, etc). I doubt it was an intentional nerf but more of a fine tuning of all the little factors that have been added to the game over the years.

I thought I was crazy too, until I saw MathasGames on youtube struggling to deal with zombies.

[Pherdnut]

Pushing with the spacebar is stronger than the weapon guard push from a 2-handed weapon, I think. Also seems to ignore the attack delay from your last swing, so it's a good follow-up if you're getting overwhelmed. I always hit spacebar when surprised. You can spacebar-push as you turn to face a zed and they'll get pushed back. But yeah, even a strong character's pushes will weaken with hunger, lack of sleep, and particularly exhaustion.

Also, the zombies are much stronger and have considerably higher detection range in 6 months later mode.