Beginner's Opinion A21: Difficulty, Water and Antibiotics

[qcs2017]

Hi,

I'm a bloody beginner. I've just survived until day 7.
I'm playing on default difficulty with default day length and default time progression on the Navezgane map.

Difficulty:
While the general difficulty regarding combat/ambushes etc. seems just right for me, the water and antibiotics situation does not.

Water:
I'm still *barely* finding enough murky water to make red tea to survive the day (I can barely do quests because I'm always hunting and searching water, the quests I did did not yield anything useful for the short term at all),I'm always thirsty before returning to the base because my tea went out. Most toilets only contain paper, the big water jugs only have 1 murky water and are *rare* (I think I found 4 so far). I do not find any vessel to carry water from a lake, which is the weirdest thing since I could take those blue jugs or the glass bottles I'm finding everywhere, and the cooking pot does not work for that as well. The Dew Collector can not be built because I'm lacking the water filter which nobody sells and the only broken water collector I found did not contain one.

Antibiotics:
The chance to contract the infection is quite big, the speed in which the infection spreads seems good enough, but I can for the life of me not find any antibiotics (I found one (!) of the herbal antibiotics pills in the time I played), and I can not craft them due to being locked behind some journals, also even if I could, I don't have that glass thing the campfire needs for making medicine - can also not be found anywhere.

Conclusion:
All in all, the game seems to set you up for failure, and that even in the default difficulty. which is a bit weird. I get challenges in combat, but the world simply does not provide enough possibilities to extract the resources to make ends meet despite being a rich world (especially in the sense of water). I understand the required time investment for hunting for food, but the water situation is just plain awful.

[che_lovek]

Antibiotics - you can chop tree stumps to get honey, which cures up to 5% of infection (around 10% chance for it to drop when you destory the stump). Chances of finding herbal/normal antibiotics is very low and you are very lucky to find 1.

Water - you can buy it from tader/vending machines. Eventually, you will learn most points of interest and would start clearing them much faster, meaning you woudn't spend as much water to get more of it.

[Mithrandir]

Another issue is probably Navezgane. There are less POIs on that WIP map and less cities. So you won't find as much murky water bottles there as you would in a generated map. In the first days, places like restaurants and motels are useful and you won't see much of them in Navezgane as cities are far from traders.

Even worse, you can't do as many missions for a trader in the first days when you must walk a mile+ to complete one. Less missions = less dukes and harder to buy filters to craft a few dew collectors. It also means to have to wait more days to get a bicycle as it's tied with completing all tier 1 missions.

I've more than 3.5 k hours in the game, and having tried Navezgane in A21, I can tell you the first week was 2X the struggle than on any other generated map I've played where the first trader you get to is in a city full of POIs instead of far away from everything.

[Crasharr]

Just wait till you are crippled from thirst while soaking wet from the overhead thunderstorm. Some aspects of this game really are just game breaking badly thought out.

[DuckAttack]

Originally posted by qcs2017:

Hi,

I'm a bloody beginner. I've just survived until day 7.
I'm playing on default difficulty with default day length and default time progression on the Navezgane map.

Difficulty:
While the general difficulty regarding combat/ambushes etc. seems just right for me, the water and antibiotics situation does not.

Water:
I'm still *barely* finding enough murky water to make red tea to survive the day (I can barely do quests because I'm always hunting and searching water, the quests I did did not yield anything useful for the short term at all),I'm always thirsty before returning to the base because my tea went out. Most toilets only contain paper, the big water jugs only have 1 murky water and are *rare* (I think I found 4 so far). I do not find any vessel to carry water from a lake, which is the weirdest thing since I could take those blue jugs or the glass bottles I'm finding everywhere, and the cooking pot does not work for that as well. The Dew Collector can not be built because I'm lacking the water filter which nobody sells and the only broken water collector I found did not contain one.

Antibiotics:
The chance to contract the infection is quite big, the speed in which the infection spreads seems good enough, but I can for the life of me not find any antibiotics (I found one (!) of the herbal antibiotics pills in the time I played), and I can not craft them due to being locked behind some journals, also even if I could, I don't have that glass thing the campfire needs for making medicine - can also not be found anywhere.

Conclusion:
All in all, the game seems to set you up for failure, and that even in the default difficulty. which is a bit weird. I get challenges in combat, but the world simply does not provide enough possibilities to extract the resources to make ends meet despite being a rich world (especially in the sense of water). I understand the required time investment for hunting for food, but the water situation is just plain awful.

I ran into water issues originally, then I found out that doing missions usually means finding more water. Check every toilet. You can get murky water that way. It seems like murky water spawns more often in an activated mission.

Armor is the best way to reduce the chance of infection. You'll then find antibiotics during missions, as rewards, or for purchase from the traders. That combo will make it so you can start to stock pile them, but with good armor, you'll rarely get infected.

[ZomBeGone]

Things get a lot easier as time goes on. The first week can be rough!

As far as I know all traders sell the filter. So to buy it, search for "filter" at the trader and it should show up. It will cost $2250 each (depending on your settings). You will need 100 plastic to build them.

As mentioned above, honey will cure up to 5% infection. DO chop all stumps and chopping trees can drop it also... and you WILL need lots of wood.

Keep your distance when fighting zeds as much as you can. I find the spear works good early game. Jab them in the face and back up, rinse repeat. Don't let them get close!

If you feel you are getting low drops, you can increase the drop rate for loot, until you get established. I prefer high loot drops as it makes the game progress faster.

Your first game you may very well die, perhaps several times, but second game generally goes much better, once you learn the tricks.

[Kara]

You are entirely correct OP. They wanted this update to "kick you in the balls", for some reason...It also takes TONS of cloth to make anything. Not to mention now needing clean water to make tape which soaks up a lot of time.

Try playing multiplayer on a public server with settings you like, less than 30 days in so the map is still fresh and largely untouched. This way you can also ask the 1-5 other people online questions.

[Roland]

Since you are a beginner I highly recommend that you play one of the PREGEN maps rather than Navezgane. Navezgane is a work in progress and it is a much more challenging experience due to distances you must travel and the fact that traders are in more rural settings. The PREGEN world will have your trader right next to an urban area so you will have plenty of places to explore and scavenge for resources.

Most everyone here is envious that you are still in that phase of coming to grips with the game! :)

[qcs2017]

Thanks for all the answers.

Funniest thing is that someone says to not play on Navezgane map, someone else perfectly explaining why that is, and still the "Official 7 Days to Die Wiki" on fandom.com (article: "Beginners Guide") says to play on Navezgane map as Beginner.

Thanks for explaining the thing with honey. I did not realize that. Learned something :-)

[Roland]

Originally posted by qcs2017:

Thanks for all the answers.

Funniest thing is that someone says to not play on Navezgane map, someone else perfectly explaining why that is, and still the "Official 7 Days to Die Wiki" on fandom.com (article: "Beginners Guide") says to play on Navezgane map as Beginner.

Thanks for explaining the thing with honey. I did not realize that. Learned something :-)

The wiki just hasn't been updated probably. Navezgane used to be perfect for beginners but with recent developments with the magazines, and water, Navezgane is no longer so easy. I'm betting that when they have time to get to it they will move the traders to be much closer to the urban areas.

[Lady MacBeth]

Originally posted by qcs2017:

Hi,

I'm a bloody beginner. I've just survived until day 7.
I'm playing on default difficulty with default day length and default time progression on the Navezgane map.

Difficulty:
While the general difficulty regarding combat/ambushes etc. seems just right for me, the water and antibiotics situation does not.

Water:
I'm still *barely* finding enough murky water to make red tea to survive the day (I can barely do quests because I'm always hunting and searching water, the quests I did did not yield anything useful for the short term at all),I'm always thirsty before returning to the base because my tea went out. Most toilets only contain paper, the big water jugs only have 1 murky water and are *rare* (I think I found 4 so far). I do not find any vessel to carry water from a lake, which is the weirdest thing since I could take those blue jugs or the glass bottles I'm finding everywhere, and the cooking pot does not work for that as well. The Dew Collector can not be built because I'm lacking the water filter which nobody sells and the only broken water collector I found did not contain one.

Antibiotics:
The chance to contract the infection is quite big, the speed in which the infection spreads seems good enough, but I can for the life of me not find any antibiotics (I found one (!) of the herbal antibiotics pills in the time I played), and I can not craft them due to being locked behind some journals, also even if I could, I don't have that glass thing the campfire needs for making medicine - can also not be found anywhere.

Conclusion:
All in all, the game seems to set you up for failure, and that even in the default difficulty. which is a bit weird. I get challenges in combat, but the world simply does not provide enough possibilities to extract the resources to make ends meet despite being a rich world (especially in the sense of water). I understand the required time investment for hunting for food, but the water situation is just plain awful.

Navezgane is a bad map imo. It was made a decade ago by hand and is vastly inferior to the rng maps that come with the game now, or creating your own rng map. In navezgane you have to get a dew collector asap. In a rng less so as there are much more toilets to grab murky out of to make due.

Your other complaints are more beginner quibbles. Spend more time with the game and revisit those thoughts as you learn how things like armor work versus crit hits (infection falls in that category), where to get honey (5% infection cure) and other things are.

[Fogey]

Also, when doing poi missions, you can clear the building, get the loot, then start the mission and it resets everything. So you clear it 2x.

[Brew]

At one point in my game, I was tired of being infected, so I went to the top of the navezgane hospital in Dierville (I'd spent a week of evenings creeping through that POI, so it was pretty clear and I had a good idea of how to get up there). I was gonna jump off and suicide and reset. It's like 6 stories high or something... pretty big POI. Turned out, I survived the fall, and only suffered a broken leg! Good grief... for a game that's trying to kill you, you also get some weird survival... :)

Yeah, infection in the early game is probably a (slow) death sentence. Try not to get infected! (Belly flopping off the roof of a big building though, is apparently not.)

[Brevan]

The odds of getting Dysentery from drinking from a river/pool/culvert is probably 12% (like a jar of Murky Water); select an empty spot on your tool belt, and keep your cross hair still on some water for a few seconds so the drinking-prompt ("Press E to Drink") appears. If you do get Dysentery, you get "30%", which takes about 20 minutes to count itself to zero. Nothing happens if that goes to 100%, and you can't go over 100%. As it counts down, about every 10% there's an event where you lose 8 Water and 3 Food (these events are what Goldenrod should prevent). You could also just drink more and eat a little. Water Filter mod in Hats or Vitamins prevent Dysentery or taking damage from drinking Murky Water (I'm not 100% sure about the damage prevention, I don't normally bother with either of those solutions).

Dysentery doesn't affect Stamina or Stamina Regen, anyone telling you otherwise hasn't played with it in A21. Having low food reduces Max Stamina, and having low Water reduces Stamina Regen.

Make a Bucket to transport water. Pour it out to create 4 cubes of water, refill it with 3 cubes, drink from the last cube.

[Bloodmasked]

the devs said they don't care about community opinion for balance/gameplay so don't waste your text guys

[Razorfish]

Forget the antibiotics, until later levels... go find honey
Also find as many books as you can, find the 3 adjacent cities
Then "hit & run" the book stores, run in Trigger the zombies & run out.

Take them one at a time outside, then go back in to read the books.
Then there are the quests....
do the clearing quests, but before you trigger the quest, do the building raw, find the zombie locations. strip the place THEN trigger the quest, which will reset the loot
But also gave you a very clear idea of where the zombies were, without you failing the quest.
do this early in the game ,so you don't loose EXP.

Absolutly do not , go into a building, trigger some zombies, then run about looking to escape & trigger more zombies