Team players who think it's easy should try the hardcore mode

General Discussion
1

I’ve beeen using the HARDCORE mode and never even realized!
Solo play.

Just wandered into a small group of bots who just kept coming and then were joined by even more even bigger ones. (yes I don’t know their names since the game doesn’t seem to bother naming them), and I just got comprehensively rinsed.

When you have that many op enemies and useless bits of kit like flares that work as well as when the lawyer tried throwing one in Jurassic Park (IE the enemies ignore the flares and keep coming at you).
When a game advertised as having a single player mode simply doesn’t (unless you somehow count this mess as a recognizably legitimate balanced campaign).
When rocket launchers do diddly-squat, except announce your presence to every foe on the landscape.
And when you have developers gleefully announcing that they are champing at the bit to INCREASE THE FLAMING CHALLENGE!..
Surely it’s time to admit that the solo play claim is a wholly unsupportable fantasy. And that it was stated only to increase sales.
If I’m wrong then where is the BALANCED play support for solo play? Why has this been neither addressed or even spoken of by the devs? And why are the devs only responding to those who play in teams who are asking for more difficulty?
Why is there no mention of balancing through optional modes like Hard, Medium and Easy? Why are solo players (who are customers too) ignored?
Is a game only good when it’s difficulty excludes anyone who is not world class?
I know some will say I should just Git Good but where’s the incentive when any engagement (even when successful) routinely leaves the solo player with nothing left in the inventory? Killing a dozen or so robots in a skirmish can depete a whole days wort of scavenged kit and so even when you win you’re back to grinding easier areas for an hour or two again.
To those who will complain that I should just shut up and improve I can only suggest they try a complete run through on solo themselves. Of course it’s not impossible but what it will definitely show is that this game already has a much harder mode, (A mode for hardcore gamers only) and it’s the mode a lot of vocal but ignored players have been playing already…
… It’s called Single Player and we’re just asking if you could show this portion of your customer base some respect by PLEASE addressing it.
You might at least acknowledge it on your own forum and maybe engage in the discussion since so many people responded negatively to your mission statement about making the game even harder in the upcoming patch!
It seeems that in modern gaming there is no kudos for developers who dare make a game that is fully functional and rewarding on single player and only shame in requesting that there might actually be some FUN in a game.

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I also play solo, and it certainly not easy. I have seen the developers say they are reducing availability of adrenaline shots (NO) which will be a killer for solo players.

Hopefully the developers find a balance.

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Well, it’s about to get a whole lot more difficult. I’ve been playing on the new patch for close to 2 hours now. I’ve looted bunkers, settlements, etc, and haven’t found a single adrenaline shot yet. Calling them “rare” is being rather generous. Non-existent is probably more accurate.

I agree they were far too common before, but this is swinging the pendulum completely in the opposite direction.

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I play both and its enjoyable how the game plays differently, with coop you can generally take on anything but in single you need to avoid confrontation. Its like an action movie vs and thriller movie.

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@DazSavage I have played through the whole story and all side missions i can find 2 times solo already and first now after the patch it actually is a bit of a challenge. before the patch the game was almost boringly easy… almost :slight_smile:
If you really think that playing solo is “impossibly hard” (paraphrasing) yeah you really do need to “git good” or at least change your mindset on how to tackle the opposition in the game.
Im not trying to be rude or flippant towards you but you must be doing something wrong if your post here is honest.
Next time you end up in a spot of trouble consider disengaging from the enemy, properly scouting out your target and approach it from another angle.
If the enemy will not give up the chase then barricade yourself in a house and fight it out using the windows, doors and corners to you advantage (turn of the lights in the house so you can see out better if its night)
Just “tanking” in this game is NOT an option and should not be an option considering that you are suppose to be a sort of guerrilla fighter against a freaking machine invasion :wink: best of luck to you and dont be a quitter :smiley:

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Solo play is a game of resource management, using the worst inventory control ever presented in a ‘shooter’ game. That moronic inventory system has made me use a lot of adrenaline, which is now almost impossible to find, so I’m not happy about that.

I say as a solo player that you pick your fights carefully, and avoid getting surrounded in the open. Put skill points into running speed and stamina, as well as all inventory slots.

Get the better weapons as soon as you can. Attack at a distance if possible, as the melee attacks are devastating in this game. Run away if you need to. Jump to a safe house if you need to get away. In solo mode, this game is not a robot blasting game, but more of a survival against enemies game. Avoid combat if possible.

Find choke points. Shoot from church bell towers and lighthouses. Keep a LOT of various health packs handy—a top level Tank’s cannon can put you down in a couple of seconds. Snipe silently, then relocate stealthily. You get the idea.

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You cant run from Hunters. I’ve tried soo many times even if you flare they just find you a few seconds later, or the 2 buddies just ignore the flare… I get that it should be difficult as solo, and i don’t mind having to spend extra time restocking after a good fight…but saving up 10 rockets for the P-90 and still not dropping a tank or even having to use 5 on a single HUNTER… thats rediculous. the only way i can seem to find that ammo is using ammo boxes, as even if you take down a target that seems to have buckets of them to use on ME, I’m lucky to find 2 of them intact… heck I am still trying to figure out most of the story since i have to take it so slow.

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Sorry but your response just makes assumptions and ignores my central premise.

  1. I do use stealth and pick my battles. It is the fact that all battles go from manageable to ridiculously frantic with little in between that I find inexplicable. You never see a small group of enemies and think "YES, I’m gonna have that! It’s always too many for it to be fun.
  2. You can’t always find a building to hide in.
  3. FUN.
    What you missed while reading my post was that the game is not balanced so that the solo play is anything like multiplayer. To balance both gameplay types each mode should be treated differently by the devs or you end up with fun for teams and hell for solo players. The devs are happy to adjust the difficulty up for group play but not adjust down for single player. Meaning that only one portion of the community is heard even though I paid the same as everyone else.
    Again I ask why there is no easy, medium and hard. I know the answer, it’s because we’re all online on the same servers and spreading everyone between three modes is now probably financial prohibitive. Bu modes like that would allow balance and not interfere with anyone other than the person choosing their own difficulty level. And we could all just get on with the gam and have some fun.
    Lastly, how would you feel if it was the other way around? I have been gamin for 40 years and have played games I thought were too easy for me on any level. So if I find a game you can only just manage on its ONE setting and demand it to be made harder just for me how would that feel?
    The reality is tha people today seem bereft of empathy. “I’m fine so therefore the problem is not that I’m actually really good at the game or that it’s been balanced improperly”, no, “I like this game so it must be perfect” and anyone with an issue must be either wrong, a ridiculously inept player or a combination of the two and therefore their opinions are to be ignored, laughed at or shouted down.
    So, what if you win the day here. Let’s make the game impossible even for a gaming god like you and then they’ll shift so few units that the company never tries anything like this again. How does that help?
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Well first of all thanks for calling me a “gaming god” :stuck_out_tongue:
No but seriously im definitely not a gaming god, above average possibly but nowhere near E-sports material.
I gave up any competitive (not even close to professional) gaming years ago and I’ve been looking for good challenging PvE games ever since and there are very few out there.
Yes i did assume some things because i had to in order to respond at all to your post.
I would love to try the game you are describing because it simply can not be the generation zero i have because it is nowhere even near to as difficult as you describe it to be.
I was trying to give you an example on how you could use different tactics and mindset (adapt and overcome) and that might have come across as i was assuming you to be fighting from a static position (both literally and figuratively) and frankly thats the only way i can perceive your plight based on my own experience of the game and your description.
Again i am not trying to piss you off or as people nowadays like to call it “troll” you but im starting to think that your definition of “fun” and mine are just vastly different and with my experience of the game, making it more “balanced” (as you call it) would risk the game becoming boringly easy.
And just FYI there are no servers, the game is pier-to-pier only with initial “match-making” over online services such as steam should one choose to play online. After that, one of the players is host to any potential others and a difficulty setting would not just have to work the way you describe it.
Difficult in this game is based on where on the map you are fighting (in some areas highly armed and armored “large” groups of machines roam while in other areas lightly armed and armored small groups roam)
And this might be another assumption but expecting to be able to play a game the same way solo as one might play in a group of people is honestly just an unbelievably unrealistic expectation and practical impossibility to implement and still be able to call it a game. (it would have to basically turn in to an “on-rails shooter” and hardly even that)
This might not be what you are arguing for but it kind of seems like it is…
The game is not perfect, i do have issues with some things in it and i know that the devs are working hard to fix all kinds of things and that includes tweaking balancing stuff such as for example enemy AI and bullet damage.
So yeah i am a bit worried that they might make the game too easy as there are WAY to many games out there that is simply no challenge or challenging in all the wrong ways. (like for example you can only save your progress X amount of times or something equally as stupid)
I am sorry that you feel the way you do about the game because i want people to like this game as i do.
If you have the possibility and are willing to play online at some point i would be happy to join your game as an observer and maybe give you some friendly pointers here and there over discord.
Hit me with a PM if this is something you would like. (free of charge of course) :wink:
In ether case, good luck out there in the Swedish “paradise” archipelago :stuck_out_tongue:

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Yes this game is hard but the mindset between playing solo and with a group are entirely different. And yes Solo is like the hardcore mode, which is why I play it almost exclusively. Its liken to being a rabbit in a forest full of wolves. While multiplayer is liken to playing a pack of wolves in a forest of wolves.

When playing solo I play entirely differently in so much that I focus on solely on surviving and not shooting the machines. I only engage the machines directly when I deduce that I might have a chance of living through it and they are standing in the way of a goal I have at the moment. Needless to say, I get into alot of combat situations due to just bad luck.

While I agree the game can be frustratingly hard at times, Its mostly due to the current bugs and not so much the design. Hunters phasing through buildings, melee attacks through walls and clipping problems. If those could be resolved, then that would fix a huge majority of my frustration.

The very low drop rate of adrenaline is insane at the moment. What they should have done was change the stack size from 20 down to 5 and leave the drop rate the same. You would have to dedicate 4 slots to equal what takes up one slot now. Nobody will be carrying 20 shots around if they reduce stack size unless they really needed to.

Not trying to be condescending but here are some tips I try to live up to in the game.

  1. When in doubt, run away.

If I accidentally get the attention of a machine I was trying to avoid or I get into a fight I miscalculated, I run away.

  1. Do not fight any machine from within a single room Barn. aka the Thunder Dome.

Due to the terrible phasing issues the game has right now, fighting machines inside a barn will soon turn into fighting machines from inside a barn into fighting machines inside a closet. There is not much room in a barn after a tank has phased through it. (Hopefully that goes away.)

  1. Never directly engage a tank/harvester on the ground.

I never directly engage a big boi unless I am in a 3 or more story building. Mostly churches. If I ever do have to kill one on purpose, I use 3 gas tanks and a radio. Or I use land mines and a radio. I only ever try to lure them into traps.

  1. Never engage a Hunter on open ground.

Be in a dense forest area or preferably inside a 2 story building for close range. A slug shotgun is your best friend against hunters in close. For long range shots take out the large sensor on right soldier and start working on the 2 weak points next to its head. Once both are cracked, start shooting its left gun hand until it pops.
for medium range, flare and firework then shoot large canisters on its back.

5.Use IR binoculars before engaging any machine. Check to see if they have buddies and how many.

  1. Inside large indoor areas, sub machine gun with AP rounds and Shot Gun are best.

  2. Outside ARs and Hunting/sniper rifles.

  3. Only use rocket launch when machine is contained/controlled first. Either be it by luring it into favorable surroundings or when using traps.

  4. Only shoot a runner if you can one or two shot the canister on its back while its standing near another runner. 2 for one shot.

  5. Use health packs with abandon. The one thing this game gives you in good supply is health packs, Use them when you need them and dont hoard them.

I hope that helps a bit. Again I am not trying to tell you that you are playing the game wrong, I just think that you might want to approach it differently with a different mindset. I hope my tips help.

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12

Only one point i strongly disagree with in your otherwise very good and helpful list @Zambrick :slight_smile:
DON’T engage hunters in a dense forest! they will have all the advantages and (like raptors) flank and come at you from all sides. they have IR and X-ray vision at the same time, you know (and no that is not a bug if someone thinks that it is) they are built that way :slight_smile:

I somewhat disagree with you regarding the adrenaline shots (but i can see why people think that is a bit much hardcore atm) so hey, im not against testing your idea about it :slight_smile:
Happy hunting :sunny:

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I think you gave some good advice. However, I’m pretty old school, so I don’t carry around sticky flares or canisters or batteries or boom boxes, etc. I just shoot my enemies, no matter what they are. The most advanced tanks are pretty hard to take down in a gunfight, but I have done that more than once. Their auto cannons are very nasty.

Lighthouses and church steeples are very excellent sniping points. I use all 3 sniper rifles, and have knocked out Tanks and Harvester using rifles only. The rocket attacks are worrisome, but they can’t elevate their cannons to fire at a high angle.

My running speed and stamina are maxed, and I can outrun any enemy type if needed. This is very handy in critical situations. As I have said, solo playing is an exercise in resource management. I use my inventory space for ammo and health, mainly.

However, at least this game allows you to develop your own play style, and I like that aspect of it. My level progress is slow, but I am having some fun. If they could just provide a reasonable inventory system…

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Adrenaline is only hard core because right now the drop rate is broken. It detects if you have at least 1 adrenaline shot and if you do your percentage chance of getting another one is probably 1% or less.

You can completely bypass this by dropping your adrenaline before you open a med backpack or pouch and you will almost guarantee getting one. Then you pick up your old pile o adrenaline and continue along.

The drop rate was high before and in need of changing, but the fact that you could horde so many of them with almost zero impact on your inventory space was the biggest issue. I would be willing to waste 2 slots in my inventory for 10 adrenaline. However no more than that.

They need to remove they change they made with the patch, and then adjust the stack size to 5 or at best 10 but never 20. Then they need to drop the find chance to 50% of what it was. This 1% or 2% chance at having more than one adrenaline shot in your inventory is for the birds. I dont think they intended for it to be this harsh.

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Have you made it up north yet? I found a town with 2 tanks 10 hunters and about 5 runners in it. The combination of wall phasing and sheer firepower led me to death many times. I had to use traps.

O and when out in the country side, the roving bands of 3 to 4 hunters with 8 to 10 runners full on sprinting through the countryside at random makes it almost impossible to do without the traps. Maybe I need to get better Guns, but that will come with time.

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I lIke this idea, I know they do need to drop the amount a bit. I get that. but to drop the find rate to what it is now is crazy. all it does is add another time sink into the solo players game, and thats all really. but its time that takes away form the fun parts of the game that is exploration. even having a stack size of 5 would at least let you find them. You would have to decide if more ammo or those extra adrenaline are more important to you and your playstyle.

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I have to say it wont matter what gun you have for that many Hunters… i’ve hit them 5 time with a gold m49 rocket and they still didn’t go down… but one mine seems to do it? i thought the m49 was supposed to HURT things… And as for running away… I still cant do it… even with throwing flares and hiding they still come at you. I mean maybe i’m hiding wrong?? in trees and crouched… behind rocks/ hills…

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I think its because the damage from the mines are coming up from the ground and hitting non armored components and the rocket has A very high chance of hitting armor. Thats the only thing I can think of that makes sense. Plain Jane High Explosive rounds are not that effective against armor, unless they are designed as HEAT rounds. HEAT rounds would have the dense material worked into the the shell housing that would allow the initial round to penetrate the armor before exploding. Right now it looks like all we have is generic HE rounds.

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I have played the whole game solo (before and after the patch). I agree you have to change your play style a little, overall i have had no issues with the nerf to adrenaline and in my case it has made the game better and more intense.
The developer gives you everything you need to survive, they give you plenty of health packs, they give you plenty of exploding barrels.
I actually like the game better now than before the patch. Give it a go, play with tactics and always have a fall back position in case you get overwhelmed.
Its actually not that hard.
Is it harder than before the patch… yes, but, its more exciting.

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I’ve only played solo so I’m unaware of the varying difficulty of solo vs coop, but when it comes to engaging the tanks, harvesters, and hunters in large groups there are a few risky but fun tactics to use where they end up annihilating each other.

Specifically for the hunters that fire a projectile that has a multiple timed blasts, positioning yourself between them and a fence or barred gate works well as they are able to see you, engage, but the projectile gets stuck on the fence/gate and explodes in front of them. Obviously works more effectively the closer they are standing to the fence,gate/etc.

For the Tanks and Harvesters, their method of attack is generally very predictable and so being positioned between two (or more) of them allows you to dexterously run to trigger their barrage of rockets. If timed well, and your position was ideal (not so close you get gassed or hit by their shockwave), the barrage will hit the other Tank/Harvester and either damage or kill it. Adding hunters in the mix has the same effect as you can use their explosive projectile against bots in a similar way. The airfield is a good place to mess around with these tactics. Once you’ve got it down you can use the Tanks and Harvesters to clear the battlefield of Hunters and Runners, and then clean the big ones up with relatively little effort. Works especially well if the Runners and Hunters swarm you just as you’re retreating into a building and one of the big ones launches their rockets on your location.

As I say, risky, but very fun if you can nail it. Have health packs ready, paramedic packs placed, and a radio on the ground too and you’ll be sorted. I’ve done it many a time without using up any adrenaline shots.

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When the adrenaline shots were plentiful, you could literally run up to a Tank or Harvester, place down a red fuel tank, then as it blasts out its shockwave it triggers the canister causing it to explode which takes it out in one (admittedly it also sends you flying…and sometimes requiring reviving). But hey it was a fun one-shot wonder that only cost one adrenaline shot and a fuel tank :joy::joy: a bit too risky now with the lack of adrenaline shots, but when they were plentiful it meant you could get pretty creative :smiling_imp:

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