Insane difficulty spike

[BoxaRocks]

Playing on easy with hordes at .6, on day 44 I have been swarmed with I kid you not over 70 groups of infected and an alpha. This is literally impossible to defend against without cheats. On day 40 it was 10-12, and it has been insanely increasing since then with a swarm every day. On day 30 it was like 6-7 and swarms were not that frequent. What is with this insane difficulty spike?

[J B Dryden]

I've been getting frustrated with the same problem. I really enjoy playing in the urban centers (especially places I've lived), and it's super frustrating to both a) find good green space to build farms; and then b) defend those spaces when it exponentially ramps up the difficulty.

[Blackmon-`]

Yeah same thing with me. damn even with so many towers and snipers plus fortified gate and walls, I can't do anything about it.

[Rider]

That shouldn't happen with the new balance changes, must be an abnormal system's behaviour. Screenshots or videos might help us with that, as well as sending a bug report.

[Swato85]

Originally posted by BoxaRocks:

Playing on easy with hordes at .6, on day 44 I have been swarmed with I kid you not over 70 groups of infected and an alpha. This is literally impossible to defend against without cheats. On day 40 it was 10-12, and it has been insanely increasing since then with a swarm every day. On day 30 it was like 6-7 and swarms were not that frequent. What is with this insane difficulty spike?

It is important to know from where the initial swarm started and how fast they got to you. I HAVE similar huge waves of attacks and they appear to be caused by map pathfinding and oreceding night! You can get a swarm, but it has troubles navigating to you so it takes long untill it arrives, in the meantime you can also jave bright nights so they are not moving. But this can afterwards result in a lot of hordes that accumulated because of things mentiones above ans maybe some other things too and so you will get what looks like a mega huge attack, while in reality there are several sifferent spawns arriving approximately at the same time.

Map limiter for horde ammounts present may be the fastest way how to limit this untill a more proper solution can be found.

Other reasons that may had happened was that you were rushing your zone too fast without proper defense growth. By day 40 you should be ready to survive many waves.

Important do you mean 40 in game days or 40 day/night cycles. These things are different.

[BoxaRocks]

It was the Crofton map. Population about 150. Day 44 per the top of the screen (not hours played). With Hordes on .6 I expected not so many/ a steady progression but it went immediately from like 5 hordes a night to 20 and exponential growth from there. Even with fortified walls and lots of machine guns and cars (which I cheated in at some point just to see if it was possible to win), they do too much damage for me to be able to repair in time for the next night alone, especially with the exponentially large increase in hordes. IDK how to send a bug report. Hard to get a screenshot of the full scale because they come in as groups of 10 every hour or so throughout the night like a wave assault. I sent a bug report as of now titled with this post and time of the original post. Hopefully it sends the whole save file for you to look at, otherwise IDK how to do it. https://steamcommunity.com/id/BoxaRocks/screenshot/2517026504454229826/

BTW I don't think the map matters because I've tried it in the middle of the country of US, on an island in the pacific, and in cities and all have the same result regarding hordes, just faster.

[BoxaRocks]

Originally posted by Eternal Knight:

Everything is beatable, you just need to work out how to play the game I am afraid, and here is the proof:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1465460/discussions/0/4361250551843424229/
And the map does matter the Devs already confirmed it, in the post above, along with the other factors that determine horde size etc. With 70 odd squads it could be 200 groups of infected, it would make no difference.
I was going to do you a video of Crofton, however two guides for Croton on very hard settings already exist:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1465460/discussions/0/6733519645849278398/
and
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1465460/discussions/0/4361249282375845693/

With hordes on .6 (the lowest setting) I wanted this to be less of a wave-survival tower defense with meta strategies (and in some cases game mechanic cheese) required to win and multiple waves every night, and more of a survival-story with some hordes here are there. There is no time to breathe currently and I find myself not even caring about the story or lore at all because I am too busy scrambling to get ready for the next wave every 5 minutes. Additionally I am not the only one that has had this complaint, as I have seen multiple threads with multiple replies of people with the same issue. This is not simply a case of "learn how to play the game loser"

[baddoggs]

Yeah i can confirm this. Thing is, once you are aware of it,
you can plan for it and act accordingly. so, if your orginised
it should not really be a problem.

[BoxaRocks]

Originally posted by Eternal Knight:

In my opinion, for every post that is made saying things are to difficult, there are always counter post being made sayings things are not. In the end it really comes down to the resilience / imagination of the player. In order to find out how to deal with these threats all you need to do is search the forum, you will find many threads, including some that come with videos that show you how to do it.

This is why multiple difficulty settings exist, and even the developer said that this is abnormal behavior for the game given my settings. The problem isn't that it is impossibly hard. The problem that it is impossibly hard without me wanting it to be that difficult. As stated previously I had it on the lowest difficulty setting (regarding hordes) and still got these ludicrous swarms.

I wanted a difficulty where I wouldn't have to min-max, use meta strategies, and research on forums how to play the game, because that ruins the immersion and feel for me when I pick apart a game down to it's core components and numbers. I wanted to play it on a lower difficulty first, enjoy the lore, story, and charm of the game, and learn how the mechanics work myself, and then try on higher difficulties myself. With this current issue that is not possible.

So I will reiterate, I don't need lectures on how to "be better", just make the lower difficulties work properly.

[BoxaRocks]

Originally posted by Eternal Knight:

There are no such thing as meta strategies, nor min-max. It is simply a case of learning how to play the game. In your case it is building multiple HQ, which increases the amount of squads you can recruit. Alternatively you can re-adapt just one large HQ, which has the same effect. That is not min-max, that is common sense and learning how to play the game, and as I said this is covered in many threads. Not listening to other players who might actually know a thing or two about the game, is also another fine example of not applying common sense. As to difficulty setting if you think there is an issue with the actual setting itself, rather than raising more threads (when the same issues have already been raised many times and answered the same amount of times) and are against the very rules you were informed of when you joined the discussions here (see point 2):
https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/
Try raising a bug report. Thats how you will get your issue fixed, ranting on these forums will not.

It doesn't matter how many squads I can have when I don't have the guns to arm them. They just get slaughtered in melee unless they sit in houses and then the houses get beat up and eventually destroyed, not to mention slowly bleeding already stretched manpower.

Would you not say that trying to manage 30 squads is more min-maxy then managing 4?

If there is no such thing as a meta strategy then why do you keep insisting I do the same thing everyone else is doing on the forums with the same strategy every time? That is a textbook definition of a meta strategy. But we're not even talking about gameplay here, so I digress.


You have been one of the least helpful people in this community in general. Giving vague answers and generally just saying "be better". Swato85 was helpful in explaining mechanics of the game to help understand why this issue is happening and/or being exacerbated in the first place, and I heeded his feedback and it did help (slightly).

Also I did not know if the difficulty spike was part of the game, or an anomaly when making this post. The question was not "How do you play this game?", it was "What is with this insane difficulty spike?". If it was not a normal occurrence then that is when I continue with the bug reports, etc. Some people shed light on the topic (including a dev). You did not.

Maybe you should stop adding useless information and pestering people for no reason that ask legitimate questions looking for legitimate answers.

[Cougarific]

Going from 8 horde swarms to 16 overnight should not be a thing.

Building multiple HQs is a totally unrealistic workaround. The whole point of a headquarters is to have one place that fulfills that role.

No-win scenarios are not good gameplay.

Getting to day 44 and realizing you have no choice but to start over (and pursue a silly strategy) is way too frustrating for most players.

[baddoggs]

Originally posted by Cougarific:

Originally posted by baddoggs:

once you are aware of it,
you can plan for it and act accordingly. so, if your orginised
it should not really be a problem.

How?

Six well-armed squads (assault rifles and pistols) have no hope against 16 hordes swarming your base on Day 44.

Am I supposed to rush sniper rifles? Even so, going from 8 hordes to 16 overnight should not be a thing.

No-win scenarios are not good gameplay.

Well, you could try, like many playing right now, to
look at why you are being beaten, and look at what you can/could do
rather that focus on what you can't.
I will say one thing though, Location seems to be the main factor
regarding how big the hordes are and how hard they are.
For me, the functions in the options menu don't seem to have that
much impact with regard to how hard the game is.

Also, 99% of "no win scenario's" are in the head, not the game.

[Cougarific]

Players should not be forced to pursue one path through a game or face certain defeat. That's just not good gameplay.

To go from "everything seems to be running smoothly" to "there's no way to win this" literally overnight (and always happening on a specific day) should be addressed by the devs.

[baddoggs]

Originally posted by Cougarific:

Players should not be forced to pursue one path through a game or face certain defeat. That's just not good gameplay.

To go from "everything seems to be running smoothly" to "there's no way to win this" literally overnight (and always happening on a specific day) should be addressed by the devs.

I will agree that there is a somewhat steep learning curve but,
there seems to be plenty of players who have managed to
find a way. I'm a bit like Jim Kirk, I don't believe in "no win
scenario's".
Just so you know, the sarcastic award was not from me.

[mr_bman]

I have it set in Beijing on easiest setting and I get some really large attacks there. But it is a huge town - you get more in a larger city. I've found 12 cars and trucks total - more spawned in once I got a bigger IFZ happening - not sure what kicked that off. I only have 8 squads and I put them in vehicles at night to move them to where the attacks come from. They still have busted through a couple of times. Running them over with trucks is the way to go.

[Cougarific]

Originally posted by mr_bman:

IRunning them over with trucks is the way to go.

Thanks, I'll try this.

I've used vehicles as weapons before but didn't think about using them on the Day 44 super-swarm. I just got frustrated and rage-quit, which is what I imagine many players will do if this isn't addressed.