A19 Early Game, Food, Guns, & survival

[RasaNova]

There's been a lot of talk about this, how the loot tables have changed, the hunger system is changed, with people saying they need to constantly eat. I've been defending many of these mechanics, saying that they are perfectly manageable. But I decided to start over again, putting myself in the shoes of a new player and taking a close look at how I play.

Day 1, I do the normal noob quest for my initial 4 points. I put 1 in spears, because that's my main early game weapon of choice even though I probably won't use one again after I get a good bat. 1 in cooking for those early food staples. 1 in cardio because everyone swears by it so figured I'd try it, and 1 in farming, because I wasn't thinking clearly and decided to waste an early game point. I clear a poi (gas station) netting a forge schematic, some level 2 stone tools, a potato seed (maybe that point in farming not so dumb after all?) and 3 or 4 books/recipes. I meet the trader, do a buried treasure mission, and loot 1 floor of a small house. As the sun goes down I go cower in my gas station as zombies walk around outside.

Day 2, I do another buried treasure mission, and then a clear/fetch. I explore a little, loot a little, nothing really noteworthy other than full set of mixed armor and clothing. I spend some time gathering resources with my mighty level 2 stone club. I see a couple deers, giving me a decent bit of meat. I find several nests. I end the day with 4 bacon & eggs, 5 boiled meat, and a weeks worth of water. As night falls I'm still cowering trying not to make noise.

Day 3, another trader fetch quest, and another small house cleared/looted. The trader has a gun in the secret stash, it's only 400 so I buy it. It's only a level 1 pistol but it provides its weight in confidence, so that night I'm not cowering in the gas station, instead I'm building a forge.

And with that, my game officially begins. Day 3, level 3, 2 unspent points, I can go in any direction of character build. I have a base that can be fortified, I'm well equipped for this point in the game with I have plenty of food/drink. So far I had eaten 1 bacon and eggs, 2 charred meat, and a can of something, and I have a box with many more food & drink items. I expect to have a bicycle (from the trader) by the end of day 4 or 5.

So, after a fresh start I have to say I still strongly disagree with what some have been saying about problems with early game, food, and guns. Now to be fair, I'm not exactly a beginner at 7D2D, and have a good idea of what I want and how to get it. I'm careful, and try to use the most of my limited daylight hours to get set up. Also, I enjoy looting, which some people don't. I agree it would be harder without looting, so that may be a challenge I set for myself in another game...

[Shurenai]

Originally posted by RasaNova:

Also, I enjoy looting, which some people don't. I agree it would be harder without looting, so that may be a challenge I set for myself in another game...

The game self balances to account for this; If someone never loots and only crafts, they'll get difficulty tailored to their choices. This self-balancing is why it can actually detrimental to double the day length or double/triple exp gain.

For double day length, if hordes are enabled, then you will have spent twice as much time accruing exp and such as you would have normally- You'll end up gaining around twice as much gamestage as you would have normally, so you'll end up with a horde tailored to that raised game stage. Yes, it gives more time to prepare- But where most screw up is in not realizing they need to leverage that time properly and prepare for something much more difficult than they realized.

Similarly, people take 150-300% exp thinking it'll make everything easier because extra perks- and they're right. But, it's double edged; You end up with more perks, but, not enough time to accrue equipment or material for building a base capable of contending with a horde that is 1.5-3x harder than it would be on default settings..

Combine both and it's multiplicative- With double length and triple exp you end up with a horde 6 times harder than vanilla- But, objectively speaking, if you managed yourself well, you SHOULD be up to the task (You have the skills, you had the time to prepare, etc)... But that is only if you knew what you were walking into. Most don't realize by doing 2x and 3x that they're effectively getting the equivalent of a day 35 or 42 horde on their first horde night.


All in all, different playstyles encounter different levels of difficulty; and having played each skill tree exclusively(IE a strength playthrough where I Never bought anything from another tree, or an agility one, or a fort one, etc), i never felt like i was fundamentally unprepared for what I encountered, it always felt pretty well balanced against my actions.

EG: In my strength playthrough I was able to make a monster base in a very short time (Miner 69er and motherlode go a long way here, and i had a working forge in the trader by chance)- And i got a comparatively monster horde... But, i had the base and tools to handle it. The only tree that really loses out here is Agility, but even then, agility is the king of hit and run- power-stab a zombie and run away, it will bleed to death. No need to stand and fight, just a very simple parkour course of places to run up and climb and jump around is golden; and so on for other trees.

TL;DR: The game self balances against your progress, for good or ill.

[darknessanubis]

You may disagree all you like but there are a couple of things you are not taking in to account. Your own experience with the game prior to this can never be completely set aside and RNG.

On your experience. You know how to use the spear and the club. You are not in that stage where trying to kill one zombie will likely get you killed as you learn. You know how to use the bow. You are not taking 10 shots to even hit the deer and then having to chase it for miles after it runs from you often into a zombie or worse direwolf or bear which will kill you before you are able to kill it. If you spend too much time trying to stay alive to get to the trader or trying to get that deer you will not have time to clear something before night fall and may not have had success getting food. Heck you might not make it to the trader for the first time if you were unlucky with how far the trader is from your spawn. You know what to harvest to get pipes and that you can do that without a wrench so making a blunderbuss becomes more realistic. For that matter you know what kind of building to clear to cower in/on for the night and that you need to do that.

RNG also plays a big role. at the end of day 4 (Game stage 11 or so) my trader had a hunting rifle. It was the first gun I had seen him have ever in this game. I did not have enough dukes for it having spent a fair bit on food from him and vending machiines. Why? because I had almost no luck looting food or finding non hostile animals. Day 5 for me I was one quest from being able to buy the rifle AND yesterdays update hit resetting everything. Trader no longer had any guns in his listing even though he was not supposed to reset for another 2 days.

So gamestage 12ish I am still using the primative bow, the club and the spear. Boarderline starving and now I am dealing with direwolves and bears on top of the zombies. I am still learning to kill zombies without getting killed myself though I am getting better at it). I am now dealing with serious predators all day long that I just can't take down. Trader has nothing to help me with that.

I was fine with the difficulty of 19 prior to yesterday. As it is now though I just can't do it. Being this terrified all the time is not fun. It is exhausting and infuriating. I will turn off hostiles until this gets some attention. I can still test other things until then.

Just one new player's opinion.

[Shurenai]

Originally posted by darknessanubis:

You may disagree all you like but there are a couple of things you are not taking in to account. Your own experience with the game prior to this can never be completely set aside and RNG.

On your experience. You know how to use the spear and the club. You are not in that stage where trying to kill one zombie will likely get you killed as you learn. You know how to use the bow. You are not taking 10 shots to even hit the deer and then having to chase it for miles after it runs from you often into a zombie or worse direwolf or bear which will kill you before you are able to kill it. If you spend too much time trying to stay alive to get to the trader or trying to get that deer you will not have time to clear something before night fall and may not have had success getting food. Heck you might not make it to the trader for the first time if you were unlucky with how far the trader is from your spawn. You know what to harvest to get pipes and that you can do that without a wrench so making a blunderbuss becomes more realistic. For that matter you know what kind of building to clear to cower in/on for the night and that you need to do that.

RNG also plays a big role. at the end of day 4 (Game stage 11 or so) my trader had a hunting rifle. It was the first gun I had seen him have ever in this game. I did not have enough dukes for it having spent a fair bit on food from him and vending machiines. Why? because I had almost no luck looting food or finding non hostile animals. Day 5 for me I was one quest from being able to buy the rifle AND yesterdays update hit resetting everything. Trader no longer had any guns in his listing even though he was not supposed to reset for another 2 days.

So gamestage 12ish I am still using the primative bow, the club and the spear. Boarderline starving and now I am dealing with direwolves and bears on top of the zombies. I am still learning to kill zombies without getting killed myself though I am getting better at it). I am now dealing with serious predators all day long that I just can't take down. Trader has nothing to help me with that.

I was fine with the difficulty of 19 prior to yesterday. As it is now though I just can't do it. Being this terrified all the time is not fun. It is exhausting and infuriating. I will turn off hostiles until this gets some attention. I can still test other things until then.

Just one new player's opinion.

Just so you know, The update wasn't the cause of the traders inventory resets- Trader resets on day 4 and 7; So when you went back on day 5, it had already reset even before the update.

[darknessanubis]

Originally posted by Shurenai:

Originally posted by darknessanubis:

You may disagree all you like but there are a couple of things you are not taking in to account. Your own experience with the game prior to this can never be completely set aside and RNG.

On your experience. You know how to use the spear and the club. You are not in that stage where trying to kill one zombie will likely get you killed as you learn. You know how to use the bow. You are not taking 10 shots to even hit the deer and then having to chase it for miles after it runs from you often into a zombie or worse direwolf or bear which will kill you before you are able to kill it. If you spend too much time trying to stay alive to get to the trader or trying to get that deer you will not have time to clear something before night fall and may not have had success getting food. Heck you might not make it to the trader for the first time if you were unlucky with how far the trader is from your spawn. You know what to harvest to get pipes and that you can do that without a wrench so making a blunderbuss becomes more realistic. For that matter you know what kind of building to clear to cower in/on for the night and that you need to do that.

RNG also plays a big role. at the end of day 4 (Game stage 11 or so) my trader had a hunting rifle. It was the first gun I had seen him have ever in this game. I did not have enough dukes for it having spent a fair bit on food from him and vending machiines. Why? because I had almost no luck looting food or finding non hostile animals. Day 5 for me I was one quest from being able to buy the rifle AND yesterdays update hit resetting everything. Trader no longer had any guns in his listing even though he was not supposed to reset for another 2 days.

So gamestage 12ish I am still using the primative bow, the club and the spear. Boarderline starving and now I am dealing with direwolves and bears on top of the zombies. I am still learning to kill zombies without getting killed myself though I am getting better at it). I am now dealing with serious predators all day long that I just can't take down. Trader has nothing to help me with that.

I was fine with the difficulty of 19 prior to yesterday. As it is now though I just can't do it. Being this terrified all the time is not fun. It is exhausting and infuriating. I will turn off hostiles until this gets some attention. I can still test other things until then.

Just one new player's opinion.

Just so you know, The update wasn't the cause of the traders inventory resets- Trader resets on day 4 and 7; So when you went back on day 5, it had already reset even before the update.

When I went there on day 4 it clearly said resets on day 7. He had not had it prior to day 4. So he had reset. It should have still been there on day 5 and it was not. He reset early after the update. Now I get this is experimental and this kind of thing can happen. It is infuriating but I accept it.

Thing is as a new player I am absolutely unable to cope with the added difficulty of the high number of hostile animals on top of everything else given my lack of skill and the poor weaponry I have atm. It was just one thing too many for me.

[warhawk373]

I think new players just think its difficult because they mess up on basic things during a new world that just make it progressively harder. Like using a whole day trying to loot one house when starting out. While it may net you 1 or 2 valuable items, its much better to just loot a kitchen for food and leave. They also tend to try to be a jack of all trades, which might work if you have 300% xp, but even then you are going to struggle with certain things. Whereas if you put your first 20 levels in to spears and marksman, or shotguns and clubs, you are going to be a zombie killing machine even when playing on insane. Last, they try to make a functional base for storage and crafting, and hope it lasts through horde night...It will NOT. It's much easier and more practical to clear out a poi and modify it for horde night, take out all the stairs, reinforce any blocks you can, fill in areas the zombies will path to with at least flagstone, then stay on the roof. Kill vultures as they come but dont waste ammo on the horde, they will just continue to respawn. Wait until morning then kill the ferals first then preferably switch to non-ammo weapons to take out the walkers.

It just takes a few hours of gameplay and a couple failed worlds to learn all this, thats why I originally thought the game was too hard and thats why I think other new players think its too hard, but its not.

[darknessanubis]

Originally posted by warhawk373:

I think new players just think its difficult because they mess up on basic things during a new world that just make it progressively harder. Like using a whole day trying to loot one house when starting out. While it may net you 1 or 2 valuable items, its much better to just loot a kitchen for food and leave. They also tend to try to be a jack of all trades, which might work if you have 300% xp, but even then you are going to struggle with certain things. Whereas if you put your first 20 levels in to spears and marksman, or shotguns and clubs, you are going to be a zombie killing machine even when playing on insane. Last, they try to make a functional base for storage and crafting, and hope it lasts through horde night...It will NOT. It's much easier and more practical to clear out a poi and modify it for horde night, take out all the stairs, reinforce any blocks you can, fill in areas the zombies will path to with at least flagstone, then stay on the roof. Kill vultures as they come but dont waste ammo on the horde, they will just continue to respawn. Wait until morning then kill the ferals first then preferably switch to non-ammo weapons to take out the walkers.

It just takes a few hours of gameplay and a couple failed worlds to learn all this, thats why I originally thought the game was too hard and thats why I think other new players think its too hard, but its not.

You are right in that new players have no idea what they are doing. What you underestimate is how many will be pushed far enough to just walk away from the game entirely. I tend to be persistent and so apparently are you we will stick around long enough to learn something. Many more people are not. They will hit their tolerance level for frustration and stress and walk or worse for the devs will hear about it and just never buy the game at all.

[RasaNova]

Originally posted by darknessanubis:

You may disagree all you like but there are a couple of things you are not taking in to account. Your own experience with the game prior to this can never be completely set aside and RNG.

On your experience. You know how to use the spear and the club. You are not in that stage where trying to kill one zombie will likely get you killed as you learn. You know how to use the bow. You are not taking 10 shots to even hit the deer and then having to chase it for miles after it runs from you often into a zombie or worse direwolf or bear which will kill you before you are able to kill it. If you spend too much time trying to stay alive to get to the trader or trying to get that deer you will not have time to clear something before night fall and may not have had success getting food. Heck you might not make it to the trader for the first time if you were unlucky with how far the trader is from your spawn. You know what to harvest to get pipes and that you can do that without a wrench so making a blunderbuss becomes more realistic. For that matter you know what kind of building to clear to cower in/on for the night and that you need to do that.

RNG also plays a big role. at the end of day 4 (Game stage 11 or so) my trader had a hunting rifle. It was the first gun I had seen him have ever in this game. I did not have enough dukes for it having spent a fair bit on food from him and vending machiines. Why? because I had almost no luck looting food or finding non hostile animals. Day 5 for me I was one quest from being able to buy the rifle AND yesterdays update hit resetting everything. Trader no longer had any guns in his listing even though he was not supposed to reset for another 2 days.

So gamestage 12ish I am still using the primative bow, the club and the spear. Boarderline starving and now I am dealing with direwolves and bears on top of the zombies. I am still learning to kill zombies without getting killed myself though I am getting better at it). I am now dealing with serious predators all day long that I just can't take down. Trader has nothing to help me with that.

I was fine with the difficulty of 19 prior to yesterday. As it is now though I just can't do it. Being this terrified all the time is not fun. It is exhausting and infuriating. I will turn off hostiles until this gets some attention. I can still test other things until then.

Just one new player's opinion.

I get your points, and can sympathize. I even addressed a lot of that in my post. Not everyone will be looters, not everyone will be using the traders. But even in your example, clearly less fortunate with the RNG you said you would have had a hunting rifle by day 5 if the trader didn't glitch, which is still what I would consider very early in the game! And as for more advanced players having an easier time of it than inexperienced players, is that not true for ANY game? There is a learning curve. The way I learned to play the game was by playing it, and seeing what worked for me and what got me killed. To me that learning curve and early struggle is an essential part of any survival game, I enjoy the struggle and the satisfaction of learning how to overcome it.

At the same time I think the game should be accessible to newer players without being too easy. there are several menu options to adjust difficulty. (although some of those options aren't well explained, and may seem like it should be easier when in fact it's not, as Shurenai mentioned.) And I'll agree with you that maybe the new animal spawns are a bit TOO punishing in the early game. On my 1st day there was a bear roaming around the gas station I ended up calling home. I knew enough to stay away from it, and also that I could outrun it due to that learning curve I mentioned. But if it had been a dire wolf, mostly silent and almost as fast as a player, I don't care how experienced somebody is that's not something you want to see on day 1.

I guess long story short:
1. Yes RNG is a factor but generally it's manageable.
2. Learning to play the game will keep you alive through those first few days.
3. Not all changes are good, animal spawns for example, which will probably be tweaked again before a19 gets rolled out.

[FT]

Originally posted by darknessanubis:

Thing is as a new player I am absolutely unable to cope with the added difficulty of the high number of hostile animals on top of everything else given my lack of skill and the poor weaponry I have atm. It was just one thing too many for me.

Even as a pretty experienced player (though admittedly not a great fighter against running enemies) I'm thinking the increased aggressive animal count is too much.
Sure, once I have a pistol or AK I'll see them as helpful "meat-deliveries", but with singleshot weapons that I'll probably miss occasionally in a panic, I'm going to die a lot....then end up with an angry animal guarding my backpack.
Early game didn't need to get inherently harder, lol...that's the part where you struggle the most already.

I will say that I've been lucky enough to only see several regular wolves in the first week since the update, haven't been mobbed by direwolves or bear yet.

[=GS=J-Rod]

I'm surprised. My experience is different from yours:

1 - Deer have been almost non-existant. I have seen 2 or 3 in the 13 days I have played, and have seen 1 rabbit. The meat I get has to be bought from the trader.
2 - One entire deer (that's 4 meals of meat; no bacon & eggs because I didn't put the skill into that) does me for 1/2 a food bar. I would need 2 deer a day to stay full.
3 - Cans of food at 10 food are also not enough- I have had to fully loot 3 POIs to get a day's worth of food.

Add it all up, and I am living day to day doing nothing but scrounging for food, although to be honest the trader makes is much more possible since one quest with him will give me enough dukes to buy 2 or 3 days worth of meat.

[Optyk]

Originally posted by warhawk373:

I think new players just think its difficult because they mess up on basic things during a new world that just make it progressively harder. Like using a whole day trying to loot one house when starting out. While it may net you 1 or 2 valuable items, its much better to just loot a kitchen for food and leave. They also tend to try to be a jack of all trades, which might work if you have 300% xp, but even then you are going to struggle with certain things. Whereas if you put your first 20 levels in to spears and marksman, or shotguns and clubs, you are going to be a zombie killing machine even when playing on insane. Last, they try to make a functional base for storage and crafting, and hope it lasts through horde night...It will NOT. It's much easier and more practical to clear out a poi and modify it for horde night, take out all the stairs, reinforce any blocks you can, fill in areas the zombies will path to with at least flagstone, then stay on the roof. Kill vultures as they come but dont waste ammo on the horde, they will just continue to respawn. Wait until morning then kill the ferals first then preferably switch to non-ammo weapons to take out the walkers.

It just takes a few hours of gameplay and a couple failed worlds to learn all this, thats why I originally thought the game was too hard and thats why I think other new players think its too hard, but its not.

I believe in a different thread you mentioned that someones settings would lead to boredom and you would shelve the game if you played like that?

If I were to play on the "rails" that you play on, I'd only last one game -whats the point in coming back and doing the same exact things over and over.

Point being, your approach to playing 7D2D is one of many options -and not so much THE approach that new players are missing, like you claim.

Kinda sounds like World War Z or a similar title might be more what you're looking for, seeing as you're only using the most efficient tactic available to defeat the games mechanics anyways and skipping the rest.

Might as well just go pew-pew everything and call it a win.

[FT]

Originally posted by =GS=J-Rod:

I'm surprised. My experience is different from yours:

1 - Deer have been almost non-existant. I have seen 2 or 3 in the 13 days I have played, and have seen 1 rabbit. The meat I get has to be bought from the trader.
2 - One entire deer (that's 4 meals of meat; no bacon & eggs because I didn't put the skill into that) does me for 1/2 a food bar. I would need 2 deer a day to stay full.
3 - Cans of food at 10 food are also not enough- I have had to fully loot 3 POIs to get a day's worth of food.

Add it all up, and I am living day to day doing nothing but scrounging for food, although to be honest the trader makes is much more possible since one quest with him will give me enough dukes to buy 2 or 3 days worth of meat.

That's a good point. Unless you get really lucky with finding particular recipes really early, the game REALLY encourages you to either spend a point in masterchef or hope the trader is selling some quality foods.
The bacon&eggs have been better than boiled/charred meat for as long as I can remember at this point, so I'm ALWAYS putting a point in MasterChef from the starting quest points. Usually the same with the forge and the bicycle (though A19 forces you to spend more points into INT or find some glasses if you need to Perk your way to the bike now...which is kind of lame). I prefer when more commonly needed things like the forge and decent meals are left as single-point low hanging fruit...yeah you still need to spread points around which isn't ideal, but at least it's only one here, one there.

[Dreamer]

I am a somewhat new player, and I can say that I handled the game pretty well until yesterday's update.

I wasn't really focused on playing in an "optimal" way, just to have fun looting POI's, doing trader missions, and learning to properly fight zombies, improve my main weapon both in skills and mods/quality, the normal stuff. I was even starting to be confident enough to do night looting, and survive doing it.

But being destroyed by dire wolves after the last update I just stopped playing until the spawns are reduced next update hopefully. I just can't handle it, they run, they have a lot of HP, big damage, its too much for me at a low level with just a baseball bat and a blunderbuss. I barely was able to handle normal dogs before this update...

[RasaNova]

Originally posted by FT:

Originally posted by =GS=J-Rod:

I'm surprised. My experience is different from yours:

1 - Deer have been almost non-existant. I have seen 2 or 3 in the 13 days I have played, and have seen 1 rabbit. The meat I get has to be bought from the trader.
2 - One entire deer (that's 4 meals of meat; no bacon & eggs because I didn't put the skill into that) does me for 1/2 a food bar. I would need 2 deer a day to stay full.
3 - Cans of food at 10 food are also not enough- I have had to fully loot 3 POIs to get a day's worth of food.

Add it all up, and I am living day to day doing nothing but scrounging for food, although to be honest the trader makes is much more possible since one quest with him will give me enough dukes to buy 2 or 3 days worth of meat.

That's a good point. Unless you get really lucky with finding particular recipes really early, the game REALLY encourages you to either spend a point in masterchef or hope the trader is selling some quality foods.
The bacon&eggs have been better than boiled/charred meat for as long as I can remember at this point, so I'm ALWAYS putting a point in MasterChef from the starting quest points. Usually the same with the forge and the bicycle (though A19 forces you to spend more points into INT or find some glasses if you need to Perk your way to the bike now...which is kind of lame). I prefer when more commonly needed things like the forge and decent meals are left as single-point low hanging fruit...yeah you still need to spread points around which isn't ideal, but at least it's only one here, one there.

I agree with spending a point in masterchef. It's certainly not a requirement but it sure makes things easier in the early game! Without that I would probably focus a lot more on trader quests, and selective looting... (bars, restaurants, markets etc) but again as mentioned earlier that's part of the learning curve and knowing where to find what we need.

Then again, I have never and will never put points in to crafting vehicles. I'd much rather use those points for something else and buy a bike (or components) for a few thousand dukes!

It all goes to show how everyone has their own "MUST HAVE" skills starting out. Cardio, iron gut, sexrex, masterchef, living off the land, miner 69er, lucky looter, better barter, etc are all skills that people will spend their first point on and can all have a profound effect on the early game!

[darknessanubis]

Originally posted by RasaNova:

Originally posted by darknessanubis:

You may disagree all you like but there are a couple of things you are not taking in to account. Your own experience with the game prior to this can never be completely set aside and RNG.

On your experience. You know how to use the spear and the club. You are not in that stage where trying to kill one zombie will likely get you killed as you learn. You know how to use the bow. You are not taking 10 shots to even hit the deer and then having to chase it for miles after it runs from you often into a zombie or worse direwolf or bear which will kill you before you are able to kill it. If you spend too much time trying to stay alive to get to the trader or trying to get that deer you will not have time to clear something before night fall and may not have had success getting food. Heck you might not make it to the trader for the first time if you were unlucky with how far the trader is from your spawn. You know what to harvest to get pipes and that you can do that without a wrench so making a blunderbuss becomes more realistic. For that matter you know what kind of building to clear to cower in/on for the night and that you need to do that.

RNG also plays a big role. at the end of day 4 (Game stage 11 or so) my trader had a hunting rifle. It was the first gun I had seen him have ever in this game. I did not have enough dukes for it having spent a fair bit on food from him and vending machiines. Why? because I had almost no luck looting food or finding non hostile animals. Day 5 for me I was one quest from being able to buy the rifle AND yesterdays update hit resetting everything. Trader no longer had any guns in his listing even though he was not supposed to reset for another 2 days.

So gamestage 12ish I am still using the primative bow, the club and the spear. Boarderline starving and now I am dealing with direwolves and bears on top of the zombies. I am still learning to kill zombies without getting killed myself though I am getting better at it). I am now dealing with serious predators all day long that I just can't take down. Trader has nothing to help me with that.

I was fine with the difficulty of 19 prior to yesterday. As it is now though I just can't do it. Being this terrified all the time is not fun. It is exhausting and infuriating. I will turn off hostiles until this gets some attention. I can still test other things until then.

Just one new player's opinion.

I get your points, and can sympathize. I even addressed a lot of that in my post. Not everyone will be looters, not everyone will be using the traders. But even in your example, clearly less fortunate with the RNG you said you would have had a hunting rifle by day 5 if the trader didn't glitch, which is still what I would consider very early in the game! And as for more advanced players having an easier time of it than inexperienced players, is that not true for ANY game? There is a learning curve. The way I learned to play the game was by playing it, and seeing what worked for me and what got me killed. To me that learning curve and early struggle is an essential part of any survival game, I enjoy the struggle and the satisfaction of learning how to overcome it.

At the same time I think the game should be accessible to newer players without being too easy. there are several menu options to adjust difficulty. (although some of those options aren't well explained, and may seem like it should be easier when in fact it's not, as Shurenai mentioned.) And I'll agree with you that maybe the new animal spawns are a bit TOO punishing in the early game. On my 1st day there was a bear roaming around the gas station I ended up calling home. I knew enough to stay away from it, and also that I could outrun it due to that learning curve I mentioned. But if it had been a dire wolf, mostly silent and almost as fast as a player, I don't care how experienced somebody is that's not something you want to see on day 1.

I guess long story short:
1. Yes RNG is a factor but generally it's manageable.
2. Learning to play the game will keep you alive through those first few days.
3. Not all changes are good, animal spawns for example, which will probably be tweaked again before a19 gets rolled out.

I was solidly on the path to learning prior to yesterdays update. In fact I had spent hours trying to justify the changes to the loot table to a friend who was in full rant mode because there were no guns. My losing out on the rifle only aggravates me because of the new hostile animal abundance. I was doing ok and learning prior to that and really didn't feel I NEEDED more firepower.

The animals pushed it over the top to me. Log in to 3 Direwolves and a bear outside my base at GS 12 on first login after the update. I managed to kill one Direwolf with about 30 arrows from the top of my base. It however had destroyed a large part of the base. Trying to get out of there the other 3 animals did me in landing me where? Back in my base which was now exposed to the animals by virtue of the destruction caused by the first one I took down. I ran like heck to the trader. The rest of the day went no better with animals I couldn't handle everywhere AND zombies I was just learning to handle on top of that. It is too much. It needs balancing.

I am not afraid of steep learning curves and hard lessons. This just isn't fun in any way. It went too far.

In my opinion we either need the hostile animals scaled back (note I did not say removed) or we need firearms in early game. Otherwise it is just far to punishing on the new.

[That One Guy]

I think that something pissing off the playerbase is that the game isn't run like a "Survival Horde Crafting Game" anymore. It's starting to get run like a Fallout-lite (RPG) game. Options and playstyles are getting limited to revolve around a new system (the Trader).