New Player Feedback.

[Irish]

OK. I am a brand new player. I am NOT an elite player. I'm a Dad who can play for a couple of hours a day.

I have played Conan, Ark, 7 days 2 die and more. I am not a newbie to survival or zombie games. I have been able to do pretty well in every one of them. I am almost completely unable to make ANY progress in infested.

I won't go into the very confusing build system, save to say that I wasted way too much time trying to collect enough stuff to build things before I realized that this was a store the materials inside what you are trying to build system. I lost a LOT of time and materials learning that lesson.

With no idea of what should be done or in what order, I finally had a shelter fire and saw by day 2.

By Day 3 I started getting attacked by the Zambies... and by that I mean that I am getting attacked at least every 10 minutes. Every 10 minutes. At MOST. It has reached the point where I barely have time to craft 1-2 spears between combats. And by day 5, I started getting the red shirt bosses with blue shirts plus 2-3 Zambie groups.

Because of this, I cannot hunt. I can barely make water. I can't even lead them off because if I somehow survive long enough to lead them away before they kill me, they are back.
I feel almost like I have to use death as a survival exploit. It's better to die than to keep fighting. Unfortunately even when you die, the Zambies keep destroying everything in sight.

I don't know how any average gamer could say at this point that the game is too easy. Even if you get lucky and get 1 zambie and kill it, you immediately need to make a new weapon. By say 12 I am still using stone spears. I know that there are metal weapons, but I haven't been able to craft them. I simply can't stay alive/ stop fighting long enough to find the resources to make an anvil. I did get a workbench by day 10.

I'm not just writing to complain, but the following things make the game almost unplayable.

1. The spawn rate of zambies is ridiculous. In a game where there is survival, players who are not looking for trouble should be able to at least have 20- 30 minute time frames fairly regularly so that they can try to hunt/fish/build.

2. Multiple groups. By day 10, it's not uncommon to be faced by 2 groups of 4-5 Zambies at once, each with a Boss. Tonight I had 3 groups at once. It was so bad that when I was respawned, I was being killed by one of the bosses each time I respawned. I was unable to do anything, and since your system keeps the Zambies right there, the situation created was permadeath. the Zambies didn't leave, I couldn't move before they killed me. They did not destroy my bed, so I always respawned in the same place. The game saved while this was going on, so despite trying to reload more than once, that was the end of that game entirely.

3. The AI affect on buildings. They immediately attack the foundations above all else, and destroy them rapidly. This however leaves anything built ON the foundations floating in the air, including the bed. While it means that you don't lose your floating stuff, and the zambies don't seem to target those structures (bed, chests, forge). Oddly enough, the AO do NOT seem to attack structures when I am a long way away from them. So every time I am attacked, my first thought is "run away from the base."


4, The weapons. I understand that weapons should wear down/ degrade, but I lose 5% trying to kill a frog. ONE combat against ONE Zambie means that I need a new weapon. I don't know the degrade rate of metal weapons, as I haven't been able to make any, but my best friend also tried it and says it is fast, so they need to be changed as well. I should be able to go at least 3-4 combats/ hunted animals without needing to make a new spear... I die in fights with 4 zombies as much because my weapon disintegrates as I do because I'm outnumbered. Better to have a slightly higher resource cost for a weapon or tool and have it last long enough to be effective, than to make one shot charlies that break down in the middle of almost every battle.

5. Food. I like the start of the food system, but the fact that the ability to prepare animals I kill is locked behind a bunch of iron ingots, is very frustrating. At the end of my game I still had not been able to build one. Imagine surviving a bear attack and then being unable to do anything with the bear. This also gates getting bones for a bone spear. I found 3 bones once and the difference in spears was significant.

6. Water. Not only is rainwater in the tub dirty, You can't add dirty to clean water in the campfire. This means that you can't maintain a constant clean water supply, The amount in the fire goes to 200 but the canteen is in multiples of 60, When you want to refill the campfire to boil water, you have to remove all of that water and pretty much need to boil 200 water from an empty campfire before you start trying to purify it. This makes you waste time trying to get the right amount of water, or wasting water. In addition, to fill the campfire with water, you need to empty your own canteen entirely, meaning that you can't have a fill canteen while getting water to boil, at least not until you can make the better one. Why not have a bucket just for carrying water that is easier to make?

7. Counterintuitive crafting: One reason that I was lost almost entirely was that a number of things made no sense. You have to build a sawmill. forge, and an anvil before you can build a basic workbench, so that you have planks and nails? And you need the workbench to make rope out of plant fiber? One would imagine that rope could be crafted in inventory, and that you would need iron to make a sawmill AT the workbench, which one would normally assume could be made from sticks/logs and rope. And then you have both a Butchering table and a food prep table with no idea what one you need first. And the requirements fir the butcher table are confusing, An entire table made of iron? This system really takes time (which I almost never had, to learn how to use) One food table would be enough.

O also saw that steel ingots stacked to 2. Iron ingots, however do not. This makes no sense. All ingots should stack... or none should.

8. Buildings: The amount of work required to gather resources and build a structure takes much more effort than it's worth. It can take hours to cut and saw and build a cabin, all to have zombies destroy your walls in 2-3 hits. The feeling when you finally get your walls up after 3 in game days of trying to get foundations and walls (no roof yet), and then Zambies show in a group of 10 and just destroy everything, leaving some stuff floating in the air makes it all seem like a hopeless effort. They can destroy in minutes what takes days real time to build.

A note here... I understand Zombies being able to do some damage over time to structures. I don't understand why zombie games tend to give them the ability to tear through solid walls at super speed.

9. The slider: I didn't even take much note of these settings at first. I saw AI and some buttons initially just seem to indicate of everything is on. I assumed that was supposed to be the case. When I DID find out, I saw that the setting for minibosses had their HP up to 200 while the slider said the default was supposed to be 100HP. I also saw options to reduce the zombies damage amounts to both people and buildings.

Now I don't like messing with such things. I feel that as a customer who bought a game to relax with, I just want easy, normal, and harder settings as a basic option; with slider stuff for more advanced players to muck around with. I didn't know how it all worked. But I did notice there was no control for how often zambies spawn, or how many. No way to reduce the number of attacks. And there was nothing to adjust groups. On or Off. That's it. So the only way to adjust the difficulty was by removing entire options for enemies? That's frustrating.

And then, after I set the options down, feeling like a cheater the entire time ... I found out that the Zambies STILL destroyed my walls and foundatiuons just as quickly as before, and the bosses were no easier to fight or kill. It was like the sliders had done nothing. I noticed absolutely NO reduction in the damage or threat level after changing the sliders. Dor this part though I was unsure if making such adjustments in mid game would actually work, or if they HAD to be set pregame.


Anyway, I know I'm new... but these problems, especially the attack increments, dissolving weapons, and paper walls/ foundations, are what makes this game almost impossible to advance in,,, and as I said, this was all by day 12. The game is supposed to last a year or more. I don't see how that's possible with the current setup.

Anyway, while all of these are problems and concerns, I would not be writing this if I didn't think this game has great potential. I would love to see what happens as it progresses and advances... if I could make it that far.

Thanks for making this game, and I can;t wait to see where the development goes. Please just consider those of us who aren't elite and who have relatively limited gaming time, We're customers too.

Thank you for your kind attention.

[Drizzt]

Originally posted by Irish:

With no idea of what should be done or in what order, I finally had a shelter fire and saw by day 2.

did you do the tutorial? it gives you everything you need to get you started: tools, sawbench, foundation, bed (possibly), campfire, shelter, forge

and as for the getting attacked and the difficulty.....

it is weird you got attacked on day 3 - it shouldn't happen till day 5 - and it is generally individual vambies at first, maybe once an hour, or maybe half an hour - and then eventually a mini boss group

and rest assured - the mini boss groups are kind of impossible

it is a work in progress - and so don't feel you need to play on the default settings to have the "standard" experience - the reason these games have settings is so that people can find their ideal challenge - and while in development it is additionally because things are not going to be entirely balanced, especially when new features (like the mini boss) are added

i play with one life and i restart when i die - so you can imagine what my first few playthroughs on default settings were like lol :-)

many people play with vambies disabled

i would recommend disabling the mini boss groups and see how you get on - and you could also disable the wandering vambies which just leaves vambies patrolling the villages, as a challenge for when you want to scavenge for blueprints and the advanced items that can be found there

i understand the desire for Easy, Medium and Hard difficulty levels - but i think that the 3 varieties of vambie groups provide that:

- just having village vambies could be classed as easy, so long as you are careful to not get mobbed by too many at once

- adding in wandering vambies could be medium, since you will need to defend your base, and keep the sound on so you can hear them coming (only the initial howl - they are currently silent when they move)

- and the mini boss groups would be classed as insane - but if you change the mini boss's stats to match the regular vambies then they are just a different kind of attack to deal with in a group of vambies - so we could downgrade that to hard

Originally posted by Irish:

4, The weapons. I understand that weapons should wear down/ degrade, but I lose 5% trying to kill a frog. ONE combat against ONE Zambie means that I need a new weapon.

yeah - this is weird too - are you using a spear? i assume you must be since it's almost impossible to kill frogs (or vambies in my opinion lol) with the axe or pickaxe

so a stone spear will generally take out at least 2 (maybe even 3) vambies before being spent - i usually carry 2, as well as 3 sticks, a rock and 5 plant fiber for emergencies (although the plant fiber is the most important since it can't be harvested on the run, whereas sticks and stones can be found on the ground as you run like crazy away from the stuff of nightmares lol)

so yeah - it is weird that yours are degrading so quickly - i have not made any metal tools or weapons yet, so i don't know how they degrade - but like i said, stone stuff is not degrading that fast for me - but yeah, slots 3 and 4 are always spears for me



i will comment on the other stuff later - but i hope maybe some of that made sense - and maybe even helped a bit :-)

[Irish]

Originally posted by Drizzt:

Originally posted by Irish:

With no idea of what should be done or in what order, I finally had a shelter fire and saw by day 2.

did you do the tutorial? it gives you everything you need to get you started: tools, sawbench, foundation, bed (possibly), campfire, shelter, forge

and as for the getting attacked and the difficulty.....

it is weird you got attacked on day 3 - it shouldn't happen till day 5 - and it is generally individual vambies at first, maybe once an hour, or maybe half an hour - and then eventually a mini boss group

and rest assured - the mini boss groups are kind of impossible

it is a work in progress - and so don't feel you need to play on the default settings to have the "standard" experience - the reason these games have settings is so that people can find their ideal challenge - and while in development it is additionally because things are not going to be entirely balanced, especially when new features (like the mini boss) are added

i play with one life and i restart when i die - so you can imagine what my first few playthroughs on default settings were like lol :-)

many people play with vambies disabled

i would recommend disabling the mini boss groups and see how you get on - and you could also disable the wandering vambies which just leaves vambies patrolling the villages, as a challenge for when you want to scavenge for blueprints and the advanced items that can be found there

i understand the desire for Easy, Medium and Hard difficulty levels - but i think that the 3 varieties of vambie groups provide that:

- just having village vambies could be classed as easy, so long as you are careful to not get mobbed by too many at once

- adding in wandering vambies could be medium, since you will need to defend your base, and keep the sound on so you can hear them coming (only the initial howl - they are currently silent when they move)

- and the mini boss groups would be classed as insane - but if you change the mini boss's stats to match the regular vambies then they are just a different kind of attack to deal with in a group of vambies - so we could downgrade that to hard

Originally posted by Irish:

4, The weapons. I understand that weapons should wear down/ degrade, but I lose 5% trying to kill a frog. ONE combat against ONE Zambie means that I need a new weapon.

yeah - this is weird too - are you using a spear? i assume you must be since it's almost impossible to kill frogs (or vambies in my opinion lol) with the axe or pickaxe

so a stone spear will generally take out at least 2 (maybe even 3) vambies before being spent - i usually carry 2, as well as 3 sticks, a rock and 5 plant fiber for emergencies (although the plant fiber is the most important since it can't be harvested on the run, whereas sticks and stones can be found on the ground as you run like crazy away from the stuff of nightmares lol)

so yeah - it is weird that yours are degrading so quickly - i have not made any metal tools or weapons yet, so i don't know how they degrade - but like i said, stone stuff is not degrading that fast for me - but yeah, slots 3 and 4 are always spears for me



i will comment on the other stuff later - but i hope maybe some of that made sense - and maybe even helped a bit :-)

I did try to use the tutorial, but some things were just a box in a long list. I don't remember explanations for all of them. I don't know if I totally completed it by the time I was getting attacked. I don't remember seeing the shelter. I discovered it when my friend mentioned it and I looked for it.

I can see what you are saying about the Zambies. But the attack times you mentioned are way off. I am getting attacked about once every 10-20 minutes. Sometimes, I barely have time to grab another couple of stones, rocks and fibers to make a new spear. Heck, sometimes the next group appears before I can do that, and if I;m lucky I can run off into the forest while they search for me, and finish making a spear. More than once I have found myself attacked while I had no weapons. The pickaxe can work poorly, the axe is almost useless and the hammer did nothing.

I want to mention that I DID change the zambies, They were set at 500 HP and 26 or 35 HP damage. I set them to 100 HP, with 10 damage to people and buildings. I reset the other zombies to 50 HP. The funny thing is that after this I noticed NO change. The bosses were just as hard to kill and everything was destroyed just as fast as before. I felt that I should have noticed SOME change... but nothing. As an addendum, this was in mid-game. Maybe changing settings mid-game doesn't work?

I will probably have to turn off groups if/when I start a new game, though, becauseat the end I was getting hit with 3 groups at once; complete with 3 red shirt bosses that penned me in and caused me to get locked into a situation where I simply get killed at the moment of spawn in every single time, with no chance to respond or act. It might be different if they destroyed the bed, but they don't.

Yes, I found spears about day 3. I have used Bone spears and Stone ones, but the bones I found only made 3 spears. Bone spears do what you mentioned.. they last long enough to take out about 4-5 zambies IF I reserved them for that and didn't hunt with them. The degradation rate is insanely fast. I think a 5%-10% at most per Zambie, but 10% seems a bit much.

Thank you SO much for a response that wasn't just 'git gud'. Your response is the kind that makes me more interested in playing again and not chucking the whole idea. Some people would not have acknowledged my concerns as being valid. I appreciate it.

[Ambient King]

Walk backwards while stabbing with the occasional timed sprint in to jab and sprint out. This is also a method to regenerate your stamina. You will almost always walk away alive. But they may get that hit in. If you run out of thirst or 100% sunburn, then you're not going to be able to regenerate your stamina. Which means you're F'cked. Same if you're overweight.

Villages are a good source of med kits. But you will also get attacked there starting on day 1.

The Infected have a fighting style of endless chase. There is no such thing as running away. Just delays the combat. Carry 2 spears and try to memorize that recipe. If you need a stick, right click on a log and harvest it. It will create sticks for you. You can further harvest firewood for more sticks as needed. Once you have the bow, keep in mind that they do not go into the water. Shoot from a water source as needed, or use a water source to diverge the enemy so you have time to breath. The range of durability between stone and steel is one extreme to the other. If you can, get bone spears. Check your in game itempedia to see what resources you need and what benches you need to make them.

Single Infected should be attacking about every 5 minutes like clockwork. It was timed and tested by another player awhile ago. Seems that's transferred over from the previous version.

Hope this helps.

[Drizzt]

Originally posted by Irish:

Thank you SO much for a response that wasn't just 'git gud'. Your response is the kind that makes me more interested in playing again and not chucking the whole idea. Some people would not have acknowledged my concerns as being valid. I appreciate it.

happy to help - or at least try to help lol :-)

yeah - i haven't seen any "git gudery" around here, which is nice - that kind of thing is really annoying when it happens - i have seen it a lot for Project Zomboid - which would be ridiculous even if it wasn't already ridiculous behaviour lol - coz that game is insanely hard on default settings - and the customisation options are hidden in a mode called "Custom Sandbox" and so many new players think it is a creative mode or some kind of cheating etc - when it's just the options to make the game suit each player - again for a game that is still in development - and there i have even seen people aggressively rail against suggestions for options to help people with physical disabilities - yeah - crazy stuff

anyway - i haven't seen any of that here which is nice

and as for changing settings mid game - it definitely works for me

so i have a test game that i use - and i was able to turn vambies on and off and modify their damage

you can try it by starting a new game with all vambies disabled and god mode and free build on - then go to a village and build a foundation that has 100 health - then save the game (i tend to always have autosave disabled and manually save - especially for test games) and exit - then select your game, enable town vambies and load the game again - if you wander around for a while in town you should find one - then run back to your foundation (or just build a new one there) and run around it trying to keep the foundation between yourself and the vambie (probably works better with a 2x2 foundation grid) - at various points, usually when they are directly across from you, they will attack and damage the foundation - which should do 10 damage (so long as your setting for Damage B was set to that value, which is the default) - then save and change Damage B to 2 and reload - the vambie should still be there and should now only do 2 damage - then save and disable town vambies - when you reload the vambie should be gone

this all worked for me

i also had all wandering vambies on and actually never encountered any in my experiment - even though i slept till day 5 and hung around my base for a bit and then wandered around a lot

and in normal games it is like a half hour between attacks - and on day 5 i usually start to get single vambies - and don't get a mini boss for a while

i am playing on the normal branch not the beta - so maybe things are different there? but from the changelogs it looks like stable and beta are probably the same at 13.0.8 - so probably not

it may well be just bad luck on that game - and for the next one it will be less nasty - but also it should be allowing you to change the settings mid game for the damage etc

anyway - i hope the suggestion for a test game may help

good luck :-)

EDIT: just corrected a typo

[Drizzt]

Originally posted by Ambient King:

Single Infected should be attacking about every 5 minutes like clockwork. It was timed and tested by another player awhile ago. Seems that's transferred over from the previous version.

yeah - really weird but i have never seen this

is generally at least 10 or 20 minutes between attacks for me - sometimes longer - and i have had test games where i sleep till day 5 and then hang around and don't get attacked and then roam around the map and find no vambies outside of villages - although i think roaming around probably makes them less likely since i think they spawn around the player - and maybe need the player to be in an area for a while - or something like that - i suspect there are all sorts of algorithms and timers in the background - same with when it spawns rocks and sticks and food etc - and maybe the crazy frogs are messing with things lol :-)

but personally i reckon turning the mini boss stats down to be closer to a regular vambie should help a lot

definitely looking forward to some more detailed configuration options in the future

[Drizzt]

figured i should reply the the rest :-)

Originally posted by Irish:

I did try to use the tutorial, but some things were just a box in a long list. I don't remember explanations for all of them. I don't know if I totally completed it by the time I was getting attacked. I don't remember seeing the shelter. I discovered it when my friend mentioned it and I looked for it.

yeah i do remember having a few bits of the tutorial maybe take a while to work out (even with the tips if you hover over them) - and yeah, the shelter is mentioned for stopping the campfire from getting put out when it rains (significant for the forge too)

but again if you were getting attacked so quick that is very different from my first play - i seem to recall having played for many hours before catching a glimpse of one crawling across the field out of the corner of my eye

i think i had recently broken the spear i had used for hunting - and discovered that the tools are not so good as weapons lol

and coz of how i play i then started a new game - which was cool coz i then knew the ropes a bit more so could get started quicker

still died either from breaking a spear mid combat or from the big dude

took me a while to learn about defences - and even then they can still break through them - especially the big dude

then i discovered a cheat - that i now have to stop myself from using lol - so instead i am turning down some of the stats for the vambies and seeing how that goes

but yeah - probably helped me that i think i did the tutorial twice - coz first time around i don't think i got to butchering an animal (10 ingots for the table - needs a load of forges and a butt load of stones lol)

Originally posted by Irish:

I can see what you are saying about the Zambies. But the attack times you mentioned are way off. I am getting attacked about once every 10-20 minutes. Sometimes, I barely have time to grab another couple of stones, rocks and fibers to make a new spear. Heck, sometimes the next group appears before I can do that, and if I;m lucky I can run off into the forest while they search for me, and finish making a spear. More than once I have found myself attacked while I had no weapons. The pickaxe can work poorly, the axe is almost useless and the hammer did nothing.

yeah i guess the 15, 20 minute mark may be on point for some runs - but i guess i'm not noticing too much coz i can do for a single vambie with a stone spear fairly easily - and the big guy doesn't show up for a while for most of my games

and then i used the cheat for my longest game - where i went around every village to see how long it would take to get all the blueprints - but then i restarted without using the cheat - coz it's a proper cheat lol :-)

but yeah for groups, running like hell and trying to conserve stamina so you can then sprint in spurts and hopefully lose them or take them out one at a time is a strategy - but you need at least 2 stone spears - and i just recently tried out bone spears and they are way better - but we can talk more about spears in a moment :-)

also losing the vambies is often really hard (maybe even impossible) - which i do kind of like - i think the distances in this game are great - you can see for miles - both the landscape and the moving creatures - i had a crawling vambie stalk me down a road and i could see it keeping following me from a mile away - was pretty cool :-)

Originally posted by Irish:

I want to mention that I DID change the zambies, They were set at 500 HP and 26 or 35 HP damage. I set them to 100 HP, with 10 damage to people and buildings. I reset the other zombies to 50 HP. The funny thing is that after this I noticed NO change. The bosses were just as hard to kill and everything was destroyed just as fast as before. I felt that I should have noticed SOME change... but nothing. As an addendum, this was in mid-game. Maybe changing settings mid-game doesn't work?

yeah really not sure what's going on there - like i say i was able to test it - so definitely worth setting yourself up a test game or two

Originally posted by Irish:

I will probably have to turn off groups if/when I start a new game, though, becauseat the end I was getting hit with 3 groups at once; complete with 3 red shirt bosses that penned me in and caused me to get locked into a situation where I simply get killed at the moment of spawn in every single time, with no chance to respond or act. It might be different if they destroyed the bed, but they don't.

yeah - i got battered by multiple groups on one game - but again, since i restart when i die every game is different and i see lots of different scenarios

but yeah - wasn't sure if they attacked non building stuff or not - is good they don't so at least you don't lose your chests - but yeah the spawn point can be a game breaker

funnily enough i broke a game by getting attacked in a village with god mode on and 3 vambies trapped me against a building so i couldn't move - and i don't think i had a weapon so i was screwed (maybe even if i had one i might have been damage locked from getting attacked so often) - but when i reloaded they had despawned - don't think i even disabled any vambies - but one of them was bugged - and he stayed while the other two despawned - was a bit weird lol

Originally posted by Irish:

Yes, I found spears about day 3. I have used Bone spears and Stone ones, but the bones I found only made 3 spears. Bone spears do what you mentioned.. they last long enough to take out about 4-5 zambies IF I reserved them for that and didn't hunt with them. The degradation rate is insanely fast. I think a 5%-10% at most per Zambie, but 10% seems a bit much.

ok - yeah - stone spears are fast - is like 5% or 10% per hit - and is like 3 or 4 hits per vambie - so at most 3 vambies

only used bone recently - but seems way better - 2 of those on the backpack should keep for a while - but then yeah, need to stab those frogs and chickens lol - i swear the chicken clucking in the undergrowth is really driving me mad - coz you can't see the little cluckers most the time lol - and it's so loud and seems like they are right there - happens on roads too - but most of those have undergrowth on both sides so i just occassionally get to see the chicken cross the road and then there's no punchline lol :-)

anyway - i do agree weapon degradation is pretty swift - and so with 2 stone spears maybe taking out one group - you then need to make more - and if you're getting attacked quick that can be nasty - the weapon rack is useful - but it is annoying that you can't snatch weapons off of it - so i often just leave one spare spear on the ground near my campfire so i know where to run to in an emergency

and as for bone - you will generally always find some bone shards in a village

anyway - i shall stop with my endless chatter there

i hope you can work out why those settings weren't working

but i can assure you that i have got them to work - so it could be a bug - maybe some old game code left over (have you updated the game several times?) - or just a bugged save

either way - i hope you can have yourself some more satisfactory fun soon :-)

and there is no downside to having a game where you only have town vambies enabled - since you will still have to fight (or avoid) them to get blueprints

and it will let you get more used to building stuff quicker and planning some defences and strategies for when you turn the wandering ones back on (and definitely worth turning that Damage B stat down - or at least setting the big guy to the same stats as the rest)

anyway - good luck and best wishes :-)

EDIT: just a minor edit in the first line about the tutorial list

[Amycat]

You can boil *any* amount of dirty water.....exactly 60 if you want.
The pot does not have to be full.

Alternatively, make a Large flask or two (each takes 3 aluminium bars on the workbench).
They have the same capacity as a full pot.

[Drizzt]

also - just loaded up one of my old games where i think there was a mini boss group on its way to my base when i saved - and after dying and respawning in my bed, i watched them destroy my base (which was fun coz the different parts have their own destruction graphics - walls falling off, foundations getting broken to pieces etc) - and while that was happening i thought of another exploit/cheat - although i expect this one is something that many players know - and is based in the fact the game does not currently have a non creative building mode in one specific aspect - and i don't know if that change is on the cards - but even if it isn't, i am looking forward to thinking about builds with some creative escape routes planned. based around this exploit

and this exploit is different to the other one i found - for this one you still have to deal with the vambies - and/or lose most of your base - my other exploit gets rid of them for very little expense

anyway - i'm liking loading up my old saves to see how things progressed lol - but only started from game 6 - the first 5 are backed up somewhere - i shall check them out later :-)

[Ambient King]

Originally posted by Drizzt:

Originally posted by Ambient King:

Single Infected should be attacking about every 5 minutes like clockwork. It was timed and tested by another player awhile ago. Seems that's transferred over from the previous version.

yeah - really weird but i have never seen this

is generally at least 10 or 20 minutes between attacks for me - sometimes longer - and i have had test games where i sleep till day 5 and then hang around and don't get attacked and then roam around the map and find no vambies outside of villages - although i think roaming around probably makes them less likely since i think they spawn around the player - and maybe need the player to be in an area for a while - or something like that - i suspect there are all sorts of algorithms and timers in the background - same with when it spawns rocks and sticks and food etc - and maybe the crazy frogs are messing with things lol :-)

but personally i reckon turning the mini boss stats down to be closer to a regular vambie should help a lot

definitely looking forward to some more detailed configuration options in the future

It might have been changed and just didn’t realize it. When your closing in on day 60, you go numb to the attacks. But thinking back now. I guess I have had the exact same experience lately. Hmm🧐

[Irish]

Originally posted by Amycat:

You can boil *any* amount of dirty water.....exactly 60 if you want.
The pot does not have to be full.

Alternatively, make a Large flask or two (each takes 3 aluminium bars on the workbench).
They have the same capacity as a full pot.

I think you misunderstood my issue.

Yes, you can boil any amount of water up to 200. What you CAN'T do is top the water off in the fire whenever you fill your canteen.

Consider that you can NOT add dirty to clean water. So imagine that I have 200 clean and I fill my canteen. Then I drink from the canteen. Now logically, I would normally assume that i can right then and there grab some dirty water, add it to top off the water in the fire, and boil it all. Voila, i'm full, my canteen is full, and my fire is full of clean water.

However, it does not work like that. If there is 200 clean water in the pot, I have to empty all 200 before I can add any more dirty water to that fire and boil it. This means that at some point I tend to come back needing water, refill and leave about 20 clean water in the pot. Depending on how thirsty I am and how much is in the fire, I can wind up full with a half canteen of fresh water that I have to dump so I can use the canteen to refill the fire.

In addition, I'm not super fast. It takes me a couple of trips to get back curing which the first 60 dirty water is boiling, unless I stop the fire entirely every time I want to boil water. Because if I am not fast enough, the first 60 dirty water will be boiled and clean before I get back to the fire with the second canteen full.

This is tedious, I have to dump out a lot of water, I have to stop and restart the fire for every batch of water, and I can't simply add dirty water to clean and boil it all.

Now I get what you are saying about the Large Flask. But I'm brand new. I have only reached the ability to build the butcher table and forge basic iron bars so far, I have zero idea how to acquire more advances ores. metals so far, and it may well be some time before that happens, as when I play games I learn by doing, not by watching. And I have a LOT to learn, as I don;t use youtube videos or online websites to figure out how to play games. There will likely be a LOT of trial and error before I can make those flasks, but I do appreciate the suggestion. Thank you. :)

[Drizzt]

Originally posted by Irish:

Yes, you can boil any amount of water up to 200. What you CAN'T do is top the water off in the fire whenever you fill your canteen.

i was thinking about this - since i previously considered various changes regarding water and i'm not sure i would push for any of them now

so - i'm actually i'm ok with the fire - since in reality you probably wouldn't want to waste clean water by pouring dirty water into it

i do take your point about stopping the fire - but firstly i'm always generally fine with stopping the fire - but also, i almost always make camp next to water, and so i can always leave the fire running to cook food while i turn and fill the flask and then turn and fill the bucket - and i can repeat that without the water boiling

it is a little tedious - but i have gotten used to it - and i kind of like that it is a grind that will be eradicated once i have the large flask (never got one yet lol - this game i have 2 aluminium that i think i got from killing vambies - so still need one more)

i do think there is some enforced hardship in the early game - just to make the payoff in the mid and later game worthwhile

but yes - if you are not near water it is a problem, again especially without the large flask - but more of a problem i think is that until we get the advanced flask we only have the small flask to transport dirty water, and we can't pour it into the water basins used to collect rain water - so we always waste 40 water when fully filling a bucket on the fire (if we only have one) - and so i was thinking i would like it if we could manually fill the water basins if we drag the flask over them when it has dirty water in it - so that if we are camping by a cave without a water source, we can make a few trips to the nearest lake and keep the water basin topped up - and it is something we can do as we go about our other business

but actually - why pour it into those, when instead we can make multiple campfires?

which give us more clean water storage - and if you're by a lake then you're in good shape with two - one to use normally and one for emergencies - and if you're not by water then you could even make half a dozen and fill them all during the first rain storm - to keep you going for a while (just be sure to build a load of water basins to make the most of the rain)

also veggie stuff can help with hydration - and in an emergency the rations will fill all your nutrition and a quarter of your hydration

so yeah - at first i was for changing things - but i am coming to appreciate the grind - since it's not a harsh grind like in "free" to play games or even premium games with microtransactions, where they make everything ultra grindy so that you will buy booster packs to skip the grind (i.e skip the game - so what's the point?)

instead the grind here is an incentive to progress, and then be rewarded with less grind - which i think is fine since it's not a horrendous grind - just one that gives you a sense of being in a hard situation fighting for survival with limited equipment and resources - and having to balance your need to keep healthy with your desire to find better tech, and also needing to defend yourself

but yeah - camping by the water is a big deal lol - as is multiple campfires and basins etc

also i still have yet to make more than one sawbench - and i am sure once i do that early on, building will become so much quicker

anyway - now i shall go an hunt for that last aluminium ingot so i can build that magical super sized flask :-)

[Drizzt]

also - quick tip - spear will attack multiple enemies if they are in front of you - and may well only take one bit of degradation for the strike (not sure about that bit - but was just reminded about the multi hit - while forcing vambies to attack me through a doorway in a village)

[Drizzt]

Originally posted by Ambient King:

Originally posted by Drizzt:

yeah - really weird but i have never seen this

is generally at least 10 or 20 minutes between attacks for me - sometimes longer - and i have had test games where i sleep till day 5 and then hang around and don't get attacked and then roam around the map and find no vambies outside of villages - although i think roaming around probably makes them less likely since i think they spawn around the player - and maybe need the player to be in an area for a while - or something like that - i suspect there are all sorts of algorithms and timers in the background - same with when it spawns rocks and sticks and food etc - and maybe the crazy frogs are messing with things lol :-)

but personally i reckon turning the mini boss stats down to be closer to a regular vambie should help a lot

definitely looking forward to some more detailed configuration options in the future

It might have been changed and just didn’t realize it. When your closing in on day 60, you go numb to the attacks. But thinking back now. I guess I have had the exact same experience lately. Hmm🧐

lol - yeah my one life strategy means that one will take a while

only made it to November in my last game - and i was cheating lol :-)
(but was mostly just an experiment to see how long it would take to get all the tech from the villages - water is actually the biggest delayer - coz the 5 rations are fine for nutrition for days - but not for hydration - so a camp is needed at maybe half of the villages - although i did one at each so i could loot them all - but then i restarted once i had all the tech - coz didn't want to go any further using the exploit)

playing it straight this game - not gonna use either exploit of which i am aware against the mini boss groups - just turned his stats down to 250/25/10 (slightly weaker than a bear) - and will see how it goes lol :-)

only just made my first bone spear - and those things are definitely better

and then there's the carts - oh wondrous carts lol :-)

right - back to it - i really need to stop my talking and do more playing lol :-)

(and yesterday was all Starship Evo testing - loving the top class Early Access games right now lol)

[Drizzt]

Originally posted by Irish:

There will likely be a LOT of trial and error before I can make those flasks,

indeed - but the Itempedia and Construction and Placeables menus are your friends - all the necessary info is in there..... somewhere lol :-)

but i just popped back with another thought about how much better things will be with Large Flasks

well there - i said it - Flasks - not Flask - Flasks

coz we can only have one regular flask (so far as i can tell you can't craft or find one - but that is balanced by the fact that you cannot drop it either)

but i guess you can have as many Large Flasks as you like - so you can finally stockpile water in a transportable way

yay :-)

now i am off to go and find a butt load of aluminium so i can have a butt load of water :-)

(i went back and forth about editing that last sentence - but i shall leave it as is and see whether i have crossed a line of appropriate language versus humor lol)

[Ambient King]

When people tell me I should read more books. I tell them I do. I read Drizzt’s posts. 😂. Just joshing.

You also can’t delete the starting canteen. I wish you could. The 60 vs. 200 water is a big change. I recommend having 2. You can also use snow to fill them with first water. Just look down and open your food pouch.