Exercising at high levels

[kennygnu]

PZ seems janky in a number of ways, but exercising especially stands out to me.

The XP required skyrockets past absurdity above level 4-5 in Strength and Fitness, to the point where I simply must ask:

Has anyone anywhere EVER leveled these stats even ONCE at high levels?

This only gives me further incentive to always take Strong and Athletic traits on all of my characters, simply so I will never ever have to worry about the absolute futility of trying to level these stats.

When x10 XP gain is called a 'sensible' upscaling in the modding community, something is very wrong.

Do you even pay attention to the exercise option under the health tab? Or are you like me and just went for broke and made a busted starter character with zero intentions of ever trying to level those particular skills?

[I B FRAGGIN U]

Nah I’m the same as you. Generally my strength and fitness get completely ignored and I just accept that whatever I start with is what I’m gonna die with. The most I’ve used the exercise for is for “RP,” purposes in multiplayer.

[★Rainmaker★]

I always play a gun goblin so I'm perfectly okay with both Strength and Fitness being at 5-6.

[KingOfFriedChicken]

I fear the workout cuz 5 minutes in the character is "in to much pain to sleep" like wtf? Lol I live with a that chronic pain, and often times I'll sleep away heavy spells of pain 🤣 working out? It use to be a good way to get some sleep, workout nice and hard get a little exhausted from it pass out rofl and it have never once made it to the "10 minutes" interval...

Not to even mention other meters even when I have them super lowered trigger very often, my 1 character eats for an army rofl

[kennygnu]

Also what is up with bumbbells and barbells only reliably spawning in Lousville?

The logic here seems to be 'get strong enough to survive by going through the most infested part of the map while you are still a weakling.'

Has anyone managed to loot and use one of these exceptionally rare artifacts on a character that didn't already have insane stats?

[Nordil(Hun)]

One time when i was still playing apocalypse i managed to level up my dude from level 0 to level 6 STR.
I that time used excercising still.
Sadly he died because B41 still was being updated, and one update made some terrible changes for the short blades, and my guy died to it. But the next, or the update thereafter fixed it.
If i recall well going from level 0 to level 6 is like going to from 7 to 8?, or 6 to 7 xp requirement wise.
Trick is once you know how you can gain STR xp fast it aint that troublesome just a bit grindy. But there are way more grindy games out there. (Looking at you Gordian Quest on Torment diffie!)

[Armagenesis]

I once leveled my fitness from 5 to 6, and it took around 4 in-game months of daily exercises. Never again.

[kennygnu]

Originally posted by Nordil(Hun):

One time when i was still playing apocalypse i managed to level up my dude from level 0 to level 6 STR.
I that time used excercising still.
Sadly he died because B41 still was being updated, and one update made some terrible changes for the short blades, and my guy died to it. But the next, or the update thereafter fixed it.
If i recall well going from level 0 to level 6 is like going to from 7 to 8?, or 6 to 7 xp requirement wise.
Trick is once you know how you can gain STR xp fast it aint that troublesome just a bit grindy. But there are way more grindy games out there. (Looking at you Gordian Quest on Torment diffie!)

I was just attempting this in single player. A fitness instructor with the fit trait, so level 10 Fitness and level 0 Strength because of thw weak trait.
The trouble is surviving day 1 when you literally can't carry anything at all and it takes on average 6 attempts to knock over one zombie.
There must be some tricks I'm not aware of, but even fence cheese is dangerous at this level of weakness, because if you don't line up your stomp EXACTLY right, the crawlers trip you.
If it were even remotely possible for me to exist with 0 Str, I would try leveling Strength. I can get the first level by locking myself in a bedroom and doing pushups and resting over and over and over again but even going from 0 to 1 Strength is just mind-numbing. It takes literally the entire day of doing nothing but exercising.

I am increasingly certain the devs introduced exercise as a form of covert trolling. Seriously, the most conservative mods out there go for a straight up x10 XP multiplier as the bare minimum to make exercising even worth investing in as a game mechanic on any level.

[Beltneck]

If you have Nutrition turned on then you should read up on that.

Being protein deficient will pretty much halt any progress you try to make on strength.

[The early worm deserves the bird]

Exercise takes a long time in this game, much like real life, but eating a ton of protein helps. It will give you a temporary multiplier boost to your strength and fitness skills (similar to reading a book) though you have to consume a lot of protein daily and workout.

[Nordil(Hun)]

Originally posted by kennygnu:

Originally posted by Nordil(Hun):

GG

I was just attempting this in single player. A fitness instructor with the fit trait, so level 10 Fitness and level 0 Strength because of thw weak trait.
The trouble is surviving day 1 when you literally can't carry anything at all and it takes on average 6 attempts to knock over one zombie.
There must be some tricks I'm not aware of, but even fence cheese is dangerous at this level of weakness, because if you don't line up your stomp EXACTLY right, the crawlers trip you.
If it were even remotely possible for me to exist with 0 Str, I would try leveling Strength. I can get the first level by locking myself in a bedroom and doing pushups and resting over and over and over again but even going from 0 to 1 Strength is just mind-numbing. It takes literally the entire day of doing nothing but exercising.

I am increasingly certain the devs introduced exercise as a form of covert trolling. Seriously, the most conservative mods out there go for a straight up x10 XP multiplier as the bare minimum to make exercising even worth investing in as a game mechanic on any level.

So. I play this start 0/0 str and fitness and basicly max pop with respawn and 6 months later settings.

Let me give you some pointers:
- do not excercise at least till you are level 3. You can reach level 3 within a month without excercising. Easily. (For me it is usually around 21 days.)
- do not use weapons. Weapons are a luxury when you have enough strength to do damage with them. Here you are just breaking them mostly, and barely doing any damage. 0 STR means you get a ton of damage reduction while using weapons.
- hand to hand combat is the way to go. You keep on pushing them zeds till they fall over, and stomp their heads. -> ALSO HAPPENS TO BE THE BEST STR XP GAIN METHOD:) For every push or stomp you are rewarded with 3 points of STR xp. Using a knife for instance would reward you like with 0.2 Xp per hit, spear is like 0.6? or so.
I need max 3 days to get myself to level 1 STR with this. But often i make it on day 1. My record is fighting 5 zombie group, and after 8 ingame hours later coming out victorious, flawlessly and with level 1 str. (additional comment after edit: since you have 10 fitness, you wont even get tired from this:D)

- only carry the necessities. Your character is weak. Weaker than weak. Your clothes already likely take up about 1/3rd of your carry capacity, a bit more if winter start.
What you need to carry are the absolute necessities, leave everything behind for a later time when you can collect them. For collecting and dropping, you can encumber yourself for a short while. But you should not get encumbered at all.
What you need is:
- something to carry water in it->cup, plastic bottle
- some kind of food, preferably something you can eat without needing a can opener or cooking or sg.
- Be careful with bags. Some of them are a trap. Duffel bags are not your friends yet. You need if i recall well level 1 or 2 str to be able to properly utilize them. Anything below big hiking bag is a trap. So unless you find a military backpack, a rucksack or a big hiking bag (maybe the normal is also good, forgot the math i did), leave it behind.

What you can have, and should if you did not encumber yourself with worthless junk:
- can opener. (it will broaden your food consumption horizon)
- frying pan. (weapon and cooking utensil)
- matches/lighter
- ripped sheet. (If you have some cans, matches, you can look for branches and stones, to make an axe. -> can start fire, frying pan+food+fire -> better food!)
- books. Limited selection, magazines too. Read them when you have the time(preferably before sleep and after you wake up.) Leave them behind if need be.

Also remember. If you do not find food, water, anything and you keep getting malus that further reduce your strength...drop the stuff, even if you deem it necessary.
If you cannot carry it, you will die because of it. But if you are able to eat/drink then you can go back and pick it up again.
I had this happen, where my guy literally had 2 carry capacity. Just the clothes he had on and one single hunting knife.(I know i should have dropped it, but i was below carry capacity, and i wanted to level my short blades and maintenance too:P)

[kennygnu]

Originally posted by Beltneck:

If you have Nutrition turned on then you should read up on that.

Being protein deficient will pretty much halt any progress you try to make on strength.

Nutrition is the bane of my life lol... I have it turned on and most produce contain one third of their real life equivalents in carbs. My characters are constantly losing weight, even when I stuff myself full to bursting multiple times per day with meat extravaganza dishes.
Hunger and nutrition being separate stats irks me to no end. It makes cooking less viable, because higher cooking levels = more hunger reduction for the same pitiful amount of carbs and calories overall.

[kennygnu]

Originally posted by Nordil(Hun):

Originally posted by kennygnu:

I was just attempting this in single player. A fitness instructor with the fit trait, so level 10 Fitness and level 0 Strength because of thw weak trait.
The trouble is surviving day 1 when you literally can't carry anything at all and it takes on average 6 attempts to knock over one zombie.
There must be some tricks I'm not aware of, but even fence cheese is dangerous at this level of weakness, because if you don't line up your stomp EXACTLY right, the crawlers trip you.
If it were even remotely possible for me to exist with 0 Str, I would try leveling Strength. I can get the first level by locking myself in a bedroom and doing pushups and resting over and over and over again but even going from 0 to 1 Strength is just mind-numbing. It takes literally the entire day of doing nothing but exercising.

I am increasingly certain the devs introduced exercise as a form of covert trolling. Seriously, the most conservative mods out there go for a straight up x10 XP multiplier as the bare minimum to make exercising even worth investing in as a game mechanic on any level.

So. I play this start 0/0 str and fitness and basicly max pop with respawn and 6 months later settings.

Let me give you some pointers:
- do not excercise at least till you are level 3. You can reach level 3 within a month without excercising. Easily. (For me it is usually around 21 days.)
- do not use weapons. Weapons are a luxury when you have enough strength to do damage with them. Here you are just breaking them mostly, and barely doing any damage. 0 STR means you get a ton of damage reduction while using weapons.
- hand to hand combat is the way to go. You keep on pushing them zeds till they fall over, and stomp their heads. -> ALSO HAPPENS TO BE THE BEST STR XP GAIN METHOD:) For every push or stomp you are rewarded with 3 points of STR xp. Using a knife for instance would reward you like with 0.2 Xp per hit, spear is like 0.6? or so.
I need max 3 days to get myself to level 1 STR with this. But often i make it on day 1. My record is fighting 5 zombie group, and after 8 ingame hours later coming out victorious, flawlessly and with level 1 str. (additional comment after edit: since you have 10 fitness, you wont even get tired from this:D)

- only carry the necessities. Your character is weak. Weaker than weak. Your clothes already likely take up about 1/3rd of your carry capacity, a bit more if winter start.
What you need to carry are the absolute necessities, leave everything behind for a later time when you can collect them. For collecting and dropping, you can encumber yourself for a short while. But you should not get encumbered at all.
What you need is:
- something to carry water in it->cup, plastic bottle
- some kind of food, preferably something you can eat without needing a can opener or cooking or sg.
- Be careful with bags. Some of them are a trap. Duffel bags are not your friends yet. You need if i recall well level 1 or 2 str to be able to properly utilize them. Anything below big hiking bag is a trap. So unless you find a military backpack, a rucksack or a big hiking bag (maybe the normal is also good, forgot the math i did), leave it behind.

What you can have, and should if you did not encumber yourself with worthless junk:
- can opener. (it will broaden your food consumption horizon)
- frying pan. (weapon and cooking utensil)
- matches/lighter
- ripped sheet. (If you have some cans, matches, you can look for branches and stones, to make an axe. -> can start fire, frying pan+food+fire -> better food!)
- books. Limited selection, magazines too. Read them when you have the time(preferably before sleep and after you wake up.) Leave them behind if need be.

Also remember. If you do not find food, water, anything and you keep getting malus that further reduce your strength...drop the stuff, even if you deem it necessary.
If you cannot carry it, you will die because of it. But if you are able to eat/drink then you can go back and pick it up again.
I had this happen, where my guy literally had 2 carry capacity. Just the clothes he had on and one single hunting knife.(I know i should have dropped it, but i was below carry capacity, and i wanted to level my short blades and maintenance too:P)

Stomping five zombies to death is suicide on 0 Str. I've just tried it and died several times over. The fence cheese apparently takes expert precision to keep them down. When I try to fence cheese more than one zombie at a time, my stomp somehow misses at least one of them and they trip my character. Juggling zombies is straight up impossible. It takes on average half a dozen attempts to make one zombie fall, and you have no safe way of advancing and standing on his back to keep him down with another four still coming at you.

I can do pushups for an hour and rest to get rid of excertion and keep repeating this literally all day and get Strength level 1 on the first day. I'm halfway to level 2 on the second day. This is with XP multiplier on passive skills enabled, and fast learner.

[Kaia]

For context on this discussion:

Protein boost Strength XP gains, not fitness XPgains.

Fitness/Str 8 to 9 = 120 000 XP
Fitness/Str 9 to 10 = 150 000 XP

What does it mean?

Squats yield the most fitness XP per hour at around 200

Therefore, to go from 9 to 10 fitness, you need to exercise 750 hours on average.

Considering resting times, sleep times, a limitless supply of food and painkillers, you can reasonably fit 6 hours of exercises per day, maybe 7 if you do nothing but.

This means that on average to go from fitness 9 to 10, you need to reasonably budget 125 days spent doing nothing but exercising, resting, eating and sleeping.


Strength is slightly different because it is affected by proteins, and because XP gains are naturally higher.

The bonus from proteins is 33%, and it applies if your proteins value is high enough (not completely sure about the figure) Conversely, if your proteins value is not high enough, you incur a penalty to str gain XP. Afaik that penalty rises up to -33%.


Assuming no protein boost, Dumbbell presses yield 1000 XP per hour, but assuming you don't have dumbbells which are rare, biceps curls are the next best thing with 775 XP per hour.

That is still close to 200 hours of exercising.

And finally, some exercises raise both str and fitness, which in the large majority of cases, are more desirable to do for most of the time, because you need to raise both. They often yield less XP than the dedicated stat exercises, further increasing the exercising time required.

[kennygnu]

Originally posted by Kaia:

For context on this discussion:

Protein boost Strength XP gains, not fitness XPgains.

Fitness/Str 8 to 9 = 120 000 XP
Fitness/Str 9 to 10 = 150 000 XP

What does it mean?

Squats yield the most fitness XP per hour at around 200

Therefore, to go from 9 to 10 fitness, you need to exercise 750 hours on average.

Considering resting times, sleep times, a limitless supply of food and painkillers, you can reasonably fit 6 hours of exercises per day, maybe 7 if you do nothing but.

This means that on average to go from fitness 9 to 10, you need to reasonably budget 125 days spent doing nothing but exercising, resting, eating and sleeping.


Strength is slightly different because it is affected by proteins, and because XP gains are naturally higher.

The bonus from proteins is 33%, and it applies if your proteins value is high enough (not completely sure about the figure) Conversely, if your proteins value is not high enough, you incur a penalty to str gain XP. Afaik that penalty rises up to -33%.


Assuming no protein boost, Dumbbell presses yield 1000 XP per hour, but assuming you don't have dumbbells which are rare, biceps curls are the next best thing with 775 XP per hour.

That is still close to 200 hours of exercising.

Yeah. Exercising at high levels is so ineffecient it's not even worth joking about.
As for barbells and dumbbells, those being in the north end of Louisville practically ensures that only late game survivors can even reach this mythical treasure, let alone put it to any use. As you said, 200 hours.

[Kaia]

You will occasionally also find them in self storage areas, but it's a rather rare find, even on normal apocalypse loot settings.