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swordplay does have the best animation tho i personally spec all mine in it, wh!le endurance/powerhouse is probly the safer choice and basically does the same but with a quite significant health boost on top but i don't like the execute animation of that one :D
The Lethality of a regular Machete, for instance (about 50% full bar), is not enough to be effective even with maxed-out Swordplay.
The weapon with the highest Lethality in the Campaign is called Bastard of Belleau Wood, and it is a rare weapon that can only be found in so-called Rare Weapons Cases. It has got roughtly 90% full Lethality bar. The locations of those cases are spread around each map, mostly unmarked on the map.
A relatively common weapon that has got ~75% Lethality bar is the Parang. The Bowie Machete is also decent. The Bounty Broker has the Ancestral Talwar currently, which has about the same Lethality as the rare Echo-2 Mamba silenced sword. That one is sold by the same trader who offers the X3-repeating crossbow. The Red Talon trader sells the RTX Exterminaton Blade, which while not the sharpest is pretty durable. The Materials trader sometimes sells the Rebar Blade, which is rather heavy and not the sharpest either, but very durable.
With the Bastard of Belleau Wood and maxed out Swordplay, each strike seems to have roughly 60% chance of a critical strike (kill), and it seems to increase when there are a lot of zombies aggroing you (but this might just be me imagining things...). You can expect to kill a zombie every 2 +/- 0,5 strikes on average. All other blades in the base game has a poorer kill ratio.
"I spec into Swordplay for the forward execute, there's no point swinging once you're experienced really".
Either it's poor mechanic design or poor balancing that encourage people to bypass mechanics altogether.
There's something awfully wrong with that.
@Protectron
Great info. There's a lot about vendors that I don't know yet. Haven't played enough. Yes, lot of people tends to bypass (again) most of weapons and simply go for CLEO weapons or other DLC / special weapons from the get-go.
Well, I'm trying my best to enjoy the game as it is. I'm not really interested into getting a golden gun from the start. That would simply make me stop playing as everything woulld be easy afterward. Same logic with not engaging with the fighting system.... I mean, what would be the point ? Why am I playing if I'm actively trying not to use the fighting system ?
Lol where do's it say in the manual, you gotta play the game the way the designers made it. Perhaps it's more the "vets" as you call em, have developed better, faster ways. Maby they got annoyed with the issue you raised, and found a move that worked better... I.E forward execution. They are "vets" for a reason
Maby that's why the "vets" are so good, they don't use the standard controls. BTW if ya being chased by a few z's in real life, why would not chop their legs off, moaning zombies following u, are just going to call more zombies, so's running for that matter.
It's also easier to pike a Z, that's floundering... I'm not sure in RL if u could sneak up behind a Z.. With nearly 700H's, I consider my self pretty "vet"
I'm seriously questioning this game basic mechanics. Some of them seems to be pretty bad. Fighting multiple Zs is really hard. I'm getting better at the game every day still I don't see a way to go melee without constant chip damage.
It's mostly because of the way the Z can magically lunge at you and almost always attack first because they got more range with their arms than you can get from any sword / mace weapons. It might be different with heavy which seems to have more range but I won't talk about them since I don't have enough experience there.
So the Zs seems to have pretty big advantages with, on top of all that, amazing player tracking. Really. Trying to run from them and they'll engage super speed and super lounge to get you still.
I'm managing really. I can fight. The chip damage is super annoying. Especially for someone like me who really wants to master the system and learn it's ins and outs. The AI seems mostly flawed in regard to combat and heavily advantaged respective to players. Which explains why people bypass the melee vs more than 5 Zs by using cheese tactics like circle around, one hit front execute a Z, circle around rinse and repeat.
There's also the player animation that has an impact. I find much wasted time in turning around or when you try to do an attack it doesn't always happen right when you click. Sometimes, it seems, the character hesitate or is locked on a Z further away even when there's some nearby. So the attack speed isn't consistent. It's pretty weird.... really weird.
Just to be clear, fighting up to 5 Zs is manageable. You can dodge through them or around and have enough stamina and leeway to attack and eventually kill them all. It's when there's more than that that you eventually end up dodging all the time and have no opportunity to attack.
I've not yet determined if there's a solution to this using the current combat mechanics. I sure hope so though... otherwise it would be pretty depressing.
The execution move also use's less stamina the hacking and slacking, it's called "stamina management"Why risk running out of stamina? Even as a "vet" I still end up running out of stamina.
You can take out a horde, with execution, an maby get 1 or 2 bites. That said, with my stealth skill's, I can also take out hordes on dread with sneak attack... Why fight a horde? especially on the higher levels.
It's not "cheesing" to dodge and execute. Both are features. And the frontal execute you unlock when Swordplay is maxed out is of course not "cheesing" it either. Nor are the other special moves you get.
You can kill hundreds of zombies with your car if you do it with the rear and not the front. That is not "cheesing" either - the game is designed that way. Why would you fight "honorable" against zombies that are spawned in just to be an obstacle for you to overcome?
The way to deal with, let's say, 10 zombies attacking you at once when you don't have the Stamina, Health or weaponry to deal with them is to get in your car and leave... or smash them with it. Or climb on the roof of your car so the zombies can't get to you and snipe them one after another with your Crossbow. That is the sensible, HUMAN decision to make when undead monsters attack you. Why be the valiant knight who squares up to them and say "come at me heathens! We will fight to the death and die with honor!"?
Well, die with honor you will then.
I'd choose living.
You do that by making a decision when the going gets tough; to leave and live another day, or to make the wrong decision and die. That is the most essential skill in the game.
Agreed. I'm not saying it isn't the optimal way to go. No, not at all. It is the optimal way... obviously enough. I'm just saying that the "normal" fighting way is so bad.... so so so bad past 5 Zs that most people don't even consider it an option which is one more argument for my point that it's kinda broken ? Poorly crafted / balanced ?
That's actually good to know. It gives me a .... target to aim for. Knowing that you're experienced. Also, it relativise my own experiences. I'm getting bitten more than that per fight but maybe I could eventually get there.
Yes, sneak is powerful but slow. I've no problem sneaking I'm pretty good at it but ultimately you play agains't the clock as your resources are ticking down. So going that slow all the time would destroy your community. It's the same logic as to why people use vehicles. They certainly don't use them to kill Zs because on anything higher than normal they're paper thin. It's because they can go faster with vehicle and bring back more rucksacks.
Well.... because it's fun ? I mean, seriously, why play any Z game ?! Because it's fun ! Duh. It's fun to craft weapon, to learn fighting styles, to face the horde, to dismember stuff.... etc. Whatever is it that you find fun there's usually a lot to do in Z games. In Dying Light, the parkour was so fun to use that just running around the map could be awesome for an hour or two. In Dead Island, the fighting mechanics were so amazing that fighting Z was just a blast. It wasn't even to loot stuff, do a quest or scavenge, no, it was purely killing in order to kill more because fighting was a blast. In Left 4 Dead, the gunplay was just great. You played to shoot stuff and do some good teamwork.
So again, I'm looking into SoD2 fighting mechanics because it's fun to face the Zs .... just as it's fun to sneak around and get them good in the back. But because the fighting seems kinda poorly balanced it's becoming a pain. As a new player, the beginning experience was great but once you start to face off agains't hordes it becomes much less fun as the fighting mechanics break down. It might be efficient and fast to go around executing every Z you see. I don't deny that. But it's boring and repetitive.
So yeah, bottom line, it's bad and it's boring to use one move all the time. Why did the devs spend time building a fighting system for this game if the only thing the system itself do is discourage player from engaging with it ? Because execution are the only way to go around killing stuff quickly, without chipping damage and also offer the best stamina return ?!
The contradiction here is pretty much jumping at you.
I wouldn't be able to discuss this matter as I do not have sufficient experience with how the different vehicles works in this game. In my limited experience on Standard they're pretty durable but everything I've read so far says that they're paper thin beyond standard. That, at best, you may ram 16-18 Zs with one car before it breaks down and that's in ideal conditions. Something like an upgraded car in perfect condition with a frontal plow. If what you're saying is true, which I seriously doubt though, then it's great.
You clearly misunderstand what cheesing a game mechanic is. Cheesing is using a mechanic in order to get more than what the dev intended for. It's getting a much better result than you should be. Thus creating an advantage. In the case of fighting, the executions are meant to be an option that you can use sometimes to quickly finish off a Z. When you look at the fighting mechanics you can clearly see that executions were meant that way because you can get interrupted, need to have proper timing, etc. The issue arise when players start to exclusively use that move because it's better than anything else. In case of cars, cheesing would be climbing on top of them and becoming invincible. But that.... might not be cheese all things considered because it seems it works with a lot of other things like building, containers and stuff. So that one might have been intended by the devs. I wouldn't know.
Ehh ? I never said anything to that regard. Don't put words in my mought man. Now, on that topic, your logic is sound. Of course you fight the Z with whichever means you have because that's the premise of the game. You start naked with very little and overwhelming odds and you're meant to overcome those odds by whatever means possible. All of that, though, should still be within the game limits. Meaning, as intended by the devs through the game mechanics. That's what it mean to make a game.
I'm pretty much okay with that. It could be debated that dealing with 10 Zs has nothing to do with Stam, health or weponry as... most players use the execute to kill them all one by one.... and again, most players pop an energy drink to make stamina a non-factor.... anyway.... let's move on, those details can be ignored for now. If we were to use logic, getting on top of your car wouldn't protect you much. First of all, most car roof would simply collapse from the weight exposing you or making you fall. Secondly, if those Z can rip off your car doors they sure should be able to nab you from the roof or climb on it too. Look, I get it, reality and game reality are different things. Within the game, being on your vehicle roof makes you invincible. That's true. Doesn't mean it makes sense nor does it mean it's consistent with the game own logic though. Anyway, wrapping this point up I'll say again that I'm pretty much okay with what you've said. Just felt like pointing out stuff for fun.
Yes, let us never ever use appeal to logic in regard to whatever happens within an unrealistic game okay ? The game's arcady as hell. We're pretty far from ARMA or even Tarkov here. So your big point about a normal human response doesn't matter one bit. For that matter, if the game was even trying to be realistic firearms would perform quite differently. Attaching a suppressor to your gun wouldn't accelerate it's degradation. That last one's especially funny.
Again with your delusions. That's stuff you're saying. I never said that. I'm merely trying to figure out how the fighting mechanics works and how to cope with their shortcomings which seems to be many.
I dunno what you're smoking but it's good stuff. Care to share ?
Anyway, joke aside, it's fine and grand that you have that opinion really. I get the RP and I get that you're giving a generalist statement that could be applied to most Z games. In that, you're correct. The only problem here is that you're talking about oranges when I'm talking about apples. Do try to stay on topic next time please.
On my end, I'm really interested in understanding the game mechanics see.
Your suggestion isn't lost on me either. I'm sure some of my opinions might change once I go into harder difficulties. Still, I don't see myself playing at the hardest one ever. That's simply not what I'm looking for with SoD2. I want to have a challenge as to make things difficult but I don't want to sweat from my balls either. Balls crushing difficulty isn't something that I usually find interesting. Such is my personal preference.
As a side note, I really want to mention that you're expressing what makes the game fun for you in the same breath as you're dismissing what makes it fun for me. That's a not so great thing to do man. As I've already stated above, fighting Z's part of my fun. I want to fight them. Also, since the game has all the necessary mechanics it seemed that it was entirely possible to do so. Now that I've gained more experience through playing I'm starting to realize that the fighting mechanics are lackluster. Most notably past 5 Zs. Which lead most of the community to cheese the system or avoid it entirely (Ex : using ranged weaponry or avoidance).
PS :
As reference, I'll say that I played Tarkov a lot and was pretty good at it. It's a well known very difficult game. Same with Dead Space 1, which I've beaten on the most difficult settings. That was another very difficult experience. Did the same with Dark Souls 1.
So yeah, sometimes, find I find the right game that really vibe with me I may go and try to challenge myself to soul crushing difficulty. It really needs to be a game I like a lot though.