[Lategame Spoilers] Zombie World is not a fun experience

[God's Ugliest Catgirl]

It's a neat concept, but the area seems to lend itself more to frustration than a fun sense of exploration. Zombies spawns are incessant, with hopping into a small closet quickly leading to a half dozen zombies crowding the door. I enjoy dark areas, but the area being pitch black quickly leads to frustration if you entered unprepared, which tends to be the case if you find the portal while exploring and hop in.

If the map must be pitch black, please either lower the spawn rate (And fix the spawns as well, zombies were spawning feet from players as we explored.), or heavily signpost the requirement for a fully charged lightsource.

If the map must be a swarm challenge, please brighten it so that the players can see a meter or two ahead of them.

Every other area in the game, I've entered with a sense of wonder that continued as I explored, looking forward to pressing forward. The zombie world is the opposite. After 15 minutes inside, my playgroup was frustrated, annoyed, and called it quits shortly after. All the other worlds have felt like fun challenges, but the zombies feel like a slog. I like the concept of an enemy you have to dedicate time to destroying after you down them, but another instantly spawning to takes its place makes it feel moot. Please find a way to improve the player experience in this level. I've enjoyed the entirety of the exploration up to this point, but this just feels like rapid shift into unfun territory

[MechWarden]

I think you missed the important point of pressing buttons to progress further and beat that area.

It isn't well telegraphed that those computer things with a button on it is your main objective when you enter that Anteverse. There is one near the entrance, but pressing the button makes it seem like you broke it, more than activate it. (at least when I first saw it)

Also, it should have been pretty clear that the place would be dark, given the hallway to the portal is also dark, but I could see missing that hint as well.

Another possibility easy to miss hint is that you hardly get any combat XP when killing the zombies, indicating that you probably should just avoid them as best you can, and find your objectives.

That said, the buttons could be hidden almost anywhere. There are a few out of the way spots they could spawn at, and could be missed entirely, and that's on top of the panic of zombies chasing you.

[God's Ugliest Catgirl]

No, I'm very aware of the buttons, our party did our damnedest to push them. But even fully kitted out with heavy armor and weapons that oneshot the zombies, we ended up constantly swarmed, no matter how much the crowd we thinned.

We also all had flashlights, but just not fully charged. Also, while the hallway leading up to it is dark, it's not pitch black. It also leads to a fully lit area, where the portal is.

In the midst of combat, it's kind of unreasonable to pay attention to your xp bar, esp when a horde is bearing down on you.

For the record, we found 4 of the buttons before leaving out of frustration

[Monokuma]

You mentioned having to kill them on the floor, so I'll just pitch in that if you aim for their head, they go down fast and permanently.

[MechWarden]

Got to admit, that area does need some work. You aren't the only one asking about some sort of lights for the place (even just extra flashlights dropped around the place would be nice!) and whatnot.

(I only noticed the XP thing in the hallway leading up to the portal, thinking I'd get a lot of XP via easy kills)

I even had to teleport back and 'regroup' (in a solo play) and try again, because I wasn't totally sure what to do (though I had an idea) or how involved it would be when I first went in. Even when prepared, it still was a bit hectic, sprinting all over the place trying to find buttons in hidden spots. There are so many zombies that could group up (not sure if the Dynamic Difficulty changes things now) that I could only kill so fast, even with a Thermal Mallet doing 2-5 headshot kills per swing. For anyone that panics, that situation only gets several times harder.

Edit:
Now that I think about it, it might be good for the devs to either make an easier version be doable at first and a harder one somehow be optional later on, or have more buttons but only need most of them to be able to exit, with pressing all of them giving a better reward than just the exit and progress. Because it kind of stinks when you find most of them, but the last one is in some spot you either missed or feels more like a trollish hiding spot than the rest. Having extras will give a better chance if at least getting enough to get out of there.

[Argerius]

You know, that the zombies won't start spawning until you press the first button. If you search for every device before that, and plan your way, it's not that hard. Not to mention that you can explore and scavenge anything before too.

[MechWarden]

They likely didn't, but I didn't want to give that as a spoiler just yet.
Yes, you can kind of cheese things by having your group hunt for all the buttons, but not press then, and then start turning them on all at once and near instantly win before very many zombie show up.

[Monokuma]

Also yeah there needs to be a flashlight near the start, flathills has one in the treehouse if you didn't bring one and it's not nearly as dark.

[Dystractive]

I think it worked pretty great as a spike in difficulty, we had been exploring for quite a while, I kumped in few minutes before my mate and we went about exploring, started in the basement made our way up, he was out of light early on eventually I did too we barely got out, think it was pretty nice to get surprised and challenged like that but I totally get how for some it'd be annoying more than fun

[Mopar_Steel57]

Originally posted by Argerius:

You know, that the zombies won't start spawning until you press the first button. If you search for every device before that, and plan your way, it's not that hard. Not to mention that you can explore and scavenge anything before too.

I second that, learned the hard way that they spawn after first button and going in without enough light or a way to recharge battery is suicide. When i came back prepared and found all the buttons before hand I was able finish the section in no more than 20 minutes or so counting the time it took to find all the buttons and mark the area near them with glow sticks.

I find in general if something in this game is too hard it's because you aren't preparing properly or you aren't doing something right.

[Mittens]

tbh it's a zone with some of the coolest furniture in the game so it makes sense you've got to fight for it

[Nick Walker II]

Originally posted by Mittens:

tbh it's a zone with some of the coolest furniture in the game so it makes sense you've got to fight for it

Not to mention a sweet sword and shield

[Voltren Xytech]

nah man, im with OP with the whole damn building being pitch black, its just too much to navigate what is effectively an Ikea, while being swarmed with infinite zombies that spawn literally on top of you in some cases, all while the place is so dark that a flash light BARELY helps, the ambient glow trinkets do nothing at all for you

the place needs some major rework, the swarm of zombies alone should be the horror, not fear of getting lost in a dark department store, at most the place should have darks spots, like the basement, but not the entire building being darker than an actual cave

i got it done in one try, but it cemented the fact i will not being going back in there ever, not even if the most powerful weapon in the game was in there

[Doctor Darling]

Took me some time, but I really improved the lighting in the place by placing the lanterns ontop of areas where zombies can't reach them, including a few shelves I made myself. Currently, when placed on the floor, they don't drain battery, and they cover a pretty good area, making them ideal for lighting up the furniture store.

[Palo Wagner]

Wtf are you guys on, when in my first time there it was easy, took some time to find the buttons but it was not horrible at all, specially with the eletric lance

[Mauman]

Couldn't you just bring in a crap ton of lamps or something? I was under the impression that placed furniture didn't disappear in portal worlds during resets.

So raid the train 4 or 5 times and put wall lamps everywhere?

I haven't gotten to the furniture store yet, so I'm not sure. Seems like a solution that'd work though.