Massive Difficulty Spike in Trader Quests from Tier 2 to Tier 3?

[JezzDawga]

Hi, just wondering if anyone else has noticed there's now a massive difficulty spike in zombies for Trader quests, specifically from Tier 2 to Tier 3?

I play solo with no blood moon and normal difficulty, and I'm getting my ass handed to me with Tier 3 quests now.
Tier 2 had like no substantially noteworthy special zombies. Maybe one glowing eyed one, dogs, and fat ones which are easy.
Tier 3 has like several glowing eyes, glowing eye fatties, and radiated fatties too. This is insane and I've died every attempt I've made with a Tier 3 quest thus far.

I've gone from acing any Tier 2 quest with a level 5 Stone Spear and Primitive armor to getting absolutely mauled on Tier 3 with Scavenger armor, Iron Spear, Pipe Rifle, Handgun with Ext. Mag, Pipe SMG with Drum Mag, and Pipe Shotgun.

No matter what I use, or even if I leave the quest area and fail the quest from backpedalling to safety to fire off a few more rounds, they just swarm me and mow me down.

This is just more confusing to me than frustrating; has anyone else been dealing with this?

[jynx]

Up your weapon skills obviously. Spears are too slow for mid/end-game, try clubs or knives. Even low level double barrels/SMGs/pistols are faster than pipe versions.
If you don't have rad attachments on your weapons take care of that.
Invest in medium armor, """"skills, and up your speed or fortitude.
Get parkour and dodge with jumps.

[Kryzx]

Seems like the types of zombies that can spawn as sleepers in POIs have been changed in V1.2. It's much more noticeable if you've taken "Infested Clear" quests, as they have been buffed up in difficulty by a lot.

I had numerous ferals, spiders, & cops when I accepted a T3 Infested clear early on in one of my V1.2 playthroughs when it released.... and that surprise ended that playthrough haha.

[Brevan]

Zombies can't attack above them, so if you're 2 blocks high then you can crouch and hit them in the head while they attack the block you're standing on. This strategy can fail if you've got 2 zombies attacking your block from the same side (one can stand on the shoulders of the other to reach you), so avoid letting them stack up or run to a safer position. If you use a gun without (or sometimes even with) a Silencer then you risk bringing in Z's from outside the POI.

Since you're using a Spear (Knife and probably Wrench would work for this too), you can also try stopping them at a door (it breaks with a small (too small for most weapons/tools) head-height hole first, then a full-body hole second (but Zs can crawl through the full-body hole, but only one at a time, but their crawling animation has hit-boxes that are harder to figure out)), but some Zs like Tourists, Cops, and Construction workers do very high block damage (about 12-30 times regular damage), so a frail door won't stop them.

[Grumpy Old Guy]

Originally posted by Kryzx:

Seems like the types of zombies that can spawn as sleepers in POIs have been changed in V1.2. It's much more noticeable if you've taken "Infested Clear" quests, as they have been buffed up in difficulty by a lot.

I had numerous ferals, spiders, & cops when I accepted a T3 Infested clear early on in one of my V1.2 playthroughs when it released.... and that surprise ended that playthrough haha.

The zombies that can spawn as sleepers in POI's have been changed. I can say that as an absolute fact I've been doing runs in 1.2 for a bit now and I've been seeing ferals, cops, and even feral wights on day one in the pine forest in specific buildings. There's even a few places I know have hard spawns for demo zombies now.

I will say that in my experience most of the tier 4-5 buildings at least on the settings I play on are absolutely not worth trying to loot without explosives.

[JezzDawga]

Originally posted by Kryzx:

Seems like the types of zombies that can spawn as sleepers in POIs have been changed in V1.2. It's much more noticeable if you've taken "Infested Clear" quests, as they have been buffed up in difficulty by a lot.

I had numerous ferals, spiders, & cops when I accepted a T3 Infested clear early on in one of my V1.2 playthroughs when it released.... and that surprise ended that playthrough haha.

Originally posted by Grumpy Old Guy:

Originally posted by Kryzx:

Seems like the types of zombies that can spawn as sleepers in POIs have been changed in V1.2. It's much more noticeable if you've taken "Infested Clear" quests, as they have been buffed up in difficulty by a lot.

I had numerous ferals, spiders, & cops when I accepted a T3 Infested clear early on in one of my V1.2 playthroughs when it released.... and that surprise ended that playthrough haha.

The zombies that can spawn as sleepers in POI's have been changed. I can say that as an absolute fact I've been doing runs in 1.2 for a bit now and I've been seeing ferals, cops, and even feral wights on day one in the pine forest in specific buildings. There's even a few places I know have hard spawns for demo zombies now.

I will say that in my experience most of the tier 4-5 buildings at least on the settings I play on are absolutely not worth trying to loot without explosives.

Thanks for confirming I'm not losing my marbles or something lol.
I definitely remember clearing Tier 3 quests back in Alpha days. I'll be sticking with Tier 2 quests until I obtain reasonable firepower I suppose.

[Trooper Bri]

Use your environment to your advantage.

As you're going through a POI remember which doors are unlocked. You get rushed, fall back, close the door, and then stab or shoot them when they break a hole in the door. Heck, you can even repair the door and stand off longer.
Carry wood spikes on your hotbar. They're great for throwing down in pinch points like doorways. It'll slow them down and/or kill them off.

Invest in Parkour so you can jump 2 blocks high. That will absolutely save your bacon instead of running around like a lunatic, rinsing your stamina and getting wailed on. Jump up out of harm's way to regroup, or wail on them from an advantage point.

I typically play on Warrior, and prefer to find a snow biome on Day 1. Once I've invested in Parkour, I'll walk into a T5 tower with a lowly bat, cheap bow, bone knife, and a toilet pistol with a stack of rounds. After that it's just a matter of fighting with your thinking cap.

[JezzDawga]

Sirs/madams, I never asked for combat advice. I'm simply wanting confirmation or opposition on the opinion that there's a massive difficulty spike between Tiers 2 and 3.

I apologize if me elaborating on the combat strategies I'm currently applying suggested to anyone that I was looking for an improved way to fight, it was not my intention.

I was simply reinforcing the notion of my Difficulty Spike opinion by explaining that I had substantially increased my arsenal and resorted to desperate tactics outside of my norm in Tier 3 quests, to no avail.

Thanks for trying to offer me advice but I'm really not trying to meta the game so that it's still actually fun.

[Trooper Bri]

When you tell folks you're getting your cloaca kicked, you're going to get advice. Don't take it wrong.

Not sure what affirmations you're looking for that's going to change facts. It's a survival game meant to kill you. You're probably going to find T4 and T5 quests are equally big gaps.

If you're resorting to "desperate tactics" outside your norm on a T3 in what I'm guessing is the starter biome (forest), maybe it's time to change up your tactics. Spikes and Parkour are hardly meta. They're tools in your survival toolbox.

[JezzDawga]

Originally posted by Trooper Bri:

When you tell folks you're getting your cloaca kicked, you're going to get advice. Don't take it wrong.

Not sure what affirmations you're looking for that's going to change facts. It's a survival game meant to kill you. You're probably going to find T4 and T5 quests are equally big gaps.

If you're resorting to "desperate tactics" outside your norm on a T3 in what I'm guessing is the starter biome (forest), maybe it's time to change up your tactics. Spikes and Parkour are hardly meta. They're tools in your survival toolbox.

Or maybe because this is a game that recently upgraded to Full Release (supposedly) and is not what I experienced in previous versions? Wanting clarification that this just wasn't something on my end? Maybe to know that these facts are indeed facts and not just my memory playing tricks on me?

If you can't help flashing your e-badge on an unrelated topic, then go right ahead. Two other people have already confirmed what I asked for anyway.

[Stone_Templar]

I don't think they are asking for how to fight the Zombies.

They are asking if devs have changed the difficulty ramp up of zombies between tier 2 and 3 quests.

[JezzDawga]

Originally posted by Stone_Templar:

I don't think they are asking for how to fight the Zombies.

They are asking if devs have changed the difficulty ramp up of zombies between tier 2 and 3 quests.

Correct, thank you :)

[stoneforrest]

NO, no problem at al level 3 quests. I played over 3000 hours 7dtd and the only new difficult quest for me is Level 5 quest "Army Post 07". Maybe you played the "butcher petes" poi quest, there maybe can be radiated zombies at the end of the quest. Watch out for a pumpgun and you will have a chance.

[CrazedTrucker]

Yeah , infested are ment to be harder and have better loot , the reason why you're seeing the harder zombies.
get lucky looter , daring adventurer up asap , you'll get more ammo drops in the weapon /ammo piles and loot at the end.

[JezzDawga]

Originally posted by CrazedTrucker:

Yeah , infested are ment to be harder and have better loot , the reason why you're seeing the harder zombies.
get lucky looter , daring adventurer up asap , you'll get more ammo drops in the weapon /ammo piles and loot at the end.

That's underselling the point I'm trying to make by a huge margin.

Of course they're meant to be harder, that's called progression.

But I'm of the opinion that the difficulty progression has a massive spike between Tiers 2 and 3, which was introduced sometime after ~A20 (I don't remember what version I played previously)?

Tier 3 quests for me have since gotten easier now on my third attempt giving them a chance (not my third quest, but my third time switching from Tier 2s to Tier 3s after getting mauled); I'm seeing relatively manageable zombies that can be handled with a pipe SMG and a backpedal plan.

But please note, as I stated in my original post, I initially was facing irradiated fatties, feral fatties, and feral regulars all at once. Not dispersed, this was all in the final battle for my first Tier 3 quest which I clearly lost.

Now, I'm just seeing a spewer and a bunch of regulars with maybe a feral or two, which I can deal with.

[bbyhighness]

I honestly haven't really noticed a huge spike, but aside from the quest tier, it also depends on the biome you're in. Unless you're already playing in pine forest, try to take quests in a lower biome if you're struggling. And infested quests will have higher level zombies than normal tier 3 quests, so avoid infested clears. Sometimes it's also some individual POIs that just suck.

That being said, I would say that tier 3 quests are a transition between early game quests and late game quests. If you feel like there's a spike in difficulty, it might be a warning that the strategy you're currently using for clearing POIs won't hold. That's why people are commenting how to deal with the zombies.