Survival games. I want to like em. I’ve tried tons of them. Green hell, 7 days to die, Dayz, hell, even Fallout 76, and lots more. Most of them don’t give you a tutorial, let alone any clues. I get that they’re supposed to be difficult, but most are arbitrarily difficult. But at least tell me how to fucking take something out of inventory and into my hand! It’s not like if thrown into a survival situation I would somehow forget how hands work. And if you’re not going to give a tutorial, at least let me start in a safe area so I can figure it out.
7 days to die really pissed me off because as soon as I’d find a gun, a stupid dog would come out of nowhere straight for me, and they take insane amounts of shots to put em down but the ammo is really REALLY scarce. Seriously though, what kind of dog can take 10 rds at point blank, and be totally unfazed? Someone later told me to combine a rock and a stick and that’ll get them in one hit. Come on, 10 rds won’t do it but a club will?
Or games with like 56 health indicators and you have to keep track of all of them? I’m sorry you’re bored, dude in the zombie apocalypse, but get the fuck over it. How can he be bored?!? Is survival not stimulating enough?
Now to be fair to other survival games, 7 days to die is just a terribly made game imo. They’ve been consistently dumbing it down and straying further from a zombie apocalypse every update. Nowadays zombie dogs look more like wendigos, and for a while they had literal yetis and plague spitting mummies in the game until they got a lot of shit for it and had to retexture them into proper zombies. I’ve got 900 hours in the game and I just can’t touch it anymore, it’s no longer fun.
No real loss then I guess. I gave up rather quickly on that one. I guess my thing with survival games is that I’m less and less willing to trudge through as much bullshit. I can play hard games and struggle through. I can play bad games and struggle through. But I can’t do both and the survival genre seems to have a lot of both.
I think survival games are the type of game that are infinitely more fun with a friend or two to play along with. As long as said friends are the cooperative type and not the type that gets upset over having stuff taken from their chest. Being able to split up the grind and show off your accomplishments or frankly terrible builds to friends always makes them a lot more fun to play. They also just tend to be pretty laid back experiences usually despite their genre’s name, so it gives plenty of room to just chat as you do menial tasks like mine or build.
Yeah at least with fallout there were really generous, friendly people to help navigate you through the wasteland. That game and culture would be perfect if not for the live service feel.
Valheim is the only survival game I enjoyed. It automatically puts new usable things in your hotbar, there are lots of tips on what to do, and a giant bird that also fly in and lets you know what is going on. You can’t starve to death and building is really straightforward.
Starting areas are not deadly unless you make some bad decisions. Doing regular and obvious stuff like finding shelter and making a fire protects you in the meadows. The first few biomes are not grindy at all unless you want them to be, but it does get a little bit later on. I like replaying the first five biomes as the maps are dynamically generated and can vary widely.
I bounced off a lot of survival games before that one.
How can he be bored?!? Is survival not stimulating enough?
You underestimate the power of boredom. There’s been studies shown that people would prefer to shock themselves than be bored for even 30 minutes to an hour.
Survival games. I want to like em. I’ve tried tons of them. Green hell, 7 days to die, Dayz, hell, even Fallout 76, and lots more. Most of them don’t give you a tutorial, let alone any clues. I get that they’re supposed to be difficult, but most are arbitrarily difficult. But at least tell me how to fucking take something out of inventory and into my hand! It’s not like if thrown into a survival situation I would somehow forget how hands work. And if you’re not going to give a tutorial, at least let me start in a safe area so I can figure it out.
7 days to die really pissed me off because as soon as I’d find a gun, a stupid dog would come out of nowhere straight for me, and they take insane amounts of shots to put em down but the ammo is really REALLY scarce. Seriously though, what kind of dog can take 10 rds at point blank, and be totally unfazed? Someone later told me to combine a rock and a stick and that’ll get them in one hit. Come on, 10 rds won’t do it but a club will?
Or games with like 56 health indicators and you have to keep track of all of them? I’m sorry you’re bored, dude in the zombie apocalypse, but get the fuck over it. How can he be bored?!? Is survival not stimulating enough?
Now to be fair to other survival games, 7 days to die is just a terribly made game imo. They’ve been consistently dumbing it down and straying further from a zombie apocalypse every update. Nowadays zombie dogs look more like wendigos, and for a while they had literal yetis and plague spitting mummies in the game until they got a lot of shit for it and had to retexture them into proper zombies. I’ve got 900 hours in the game and I just can’t touch it anymore, it’s no longer fun.
No real loss then I guess. I gave up rather quickly on that one. I guess my thing with survival games is that I’m less and less willing to trudge through as much bullshit. I can play hard games and struggle through. I can play bad games and struggle through. But I can’t do both and the survival genre seems to have a lot of both.
I think survival games are the type of game that are infinitely more fun with a friend or two to play along with. As long as said friends are the cooperative type and not the type that gets upset over having stuff taken from their chest. Being able to split up the grind and show off your accomplishments or frankly terrible builds to friends always makes them a lot more fun to play. They also just tend to be pretty laid back experiences usually despite their genre’s name, so it gives plenty of room to just chat as you do menial tasks like mine or build.
Yeah at least with fallout there were really generous, friendly people to help navigate you through the wasteland. That game and culture would be perfect if not for the live service feel.
Valheim is the only survival game I enjoyed. It automatically puts new usable things in your hotbar, there are lots of tips on what to do, and a giant bird that also fly in and lets you know what is going on. You can’t starve to death and building is really straightforward.
Starting areas are not deadly unless you make some bad decisions. Doing regular and obvious stuff like finding shelter and making a fire protects you in the meadows. The first few biomes are not grindy at all unless you want them to be, but it does get a little bit later on. I like replaying the first five biomes as the maps are dynamically generated and can vary widely.
I bounced off a lot of survival games before that one.
I loved Valheim until the relentless and honestly boring constant enemy swarm in Ashlands.
Or the complete lack of optimization making even a 4090 grind to a halt on moderately large builds.
Other than the lack of structural integrity, Enshrouded has it beat on all fronts.
Thanks for the heads up! I’ll have to check it out! I also happen to love viking lore.
It is also very reasonably priced!
You underestimate the power of boredom. There’s been studies shown that people would prefer to shock themselves than be bored for even 30 minutes to an hour.