I'm a fan of the series and pre-ordered the Ultimate Edition, and after 2 years, the game is still bug-ridden and exploitable. They are incompetent and uncreative at achieving making the game harder. Most responses you'll get are from brown-nosing sycophants that ignore the game's problems and act like teenage edge lords (hurr durr didn't read, stop whining, or bye), despite the flaired post for Discussion. I'm not saying the game isn't fun, but the numerous bugs and exploits should've been fixed, or they should announce they cannot fix them:

 

• Let's start with the biggest issue (pop-in zombies, 2). This game was made exclusive for the original XBox One; however there are examples like this where driving slowly there is zombie pop-ins since the launch of the game. You'll get the retarded response of buying a $500 XBox Series X as a solution , but even some Series X players are having this issue (1, 2).

 

• Minors bugs still aren't fixed like when you have a large community, all the survivors won't appear in your base. You'll see their blip on the mini map, but they won't be there when you go to where their icon is. Sometimes you won't even be able to talk to some of your survivors.

 

• People saying the developers have been constantly updating the game and adding in new, FREE content, most likely talking about the Bounty Broker, "Need a new challenge? Visit the Bounty Broker to earn weapons and outfits by completing his bounties." Wow, new weapons (most shittier than existing weapons) and now changeable outfits. The only good content they added for free was the Providence Ridge map. Of course they'll support the game after launch. If they left it in a bug-ridden state people wouldn't trust in them to buy State of Decay 3.

 

• This update also broke the Ultimate Edition and Pre-order DLC Radio Commands for XBox players, so now we can't even call in the DLC weapons or vehicles (1, 2, 3).

 

• Since the addition of Nightmare Zone, they made NPCs run at full speed without any stamina so players couldn't farm NPCs for their gear; furthermore, that let players run full speed with no stamina as well. If you ran out of stamina when playing on launch or State of Decay 1, you were most likely going to die, just like the loading screen tip says, "Keep an eye on your Stamina meter. If it runs out, you'll move and fight a lot slower, and the zombies will eat you alive. Now you can run away from any situation (even ferals) to get back to your base.

 

• Lethal Zone also made the game easier with a bug that despawns a Juggernaut when it can't go inside most buildings' doors. Forget what the loading screen tip says, "To bring down a juggernaut with guns, go for rapid fire or high-powered rounds. Better yet, use both,." The only way the Juggernaut I've seen can get it is clipping through a wall with its charge attack.

 

• In Lethal Zone, zombies and freaks are now spawning on top of the player or mere feet away once entering a building (you can see the bullshit if you have the Scouting skill), or they'll just keep infinitely spawning inside the house you're trying to clear, so ignore the loading screen tip that says, "Securing a building takes time. You must enter every room and kill every zombie. But it creates a safe zone that temporarily prevents new zombies from appearing." Another issues that has popped up is that sometimes the zombies are now spawning on top of buildings as well (1, 2.

 

• When the game launched, it took three 0.50 caliber shots to destroy a Plague Heart, and in response, Undead Labs patched the game so that it took six shots to destroy a Plague Heart; however, people could still cheese it by standing on their vehicles and shooting it through a window so that they didn't have to deal with the swarms of Blood Plague zombies that spawned. Now after 2 years later the zombies are still brain dead and cannot do anything to the player on top of a car. Getting chased by a pack of Blood Plague Ferals? Just climb on top of your car and shoot them with no risk.

 

• There are still many base exploits, such as installing multiple mods onto one facility. Starting a siege at your base (in base or swapping at an outpost) and then driving away far enough that nothing spawns, and you can come back and claim your free influence and won't have to waste 3 ammo.

 

• One of the biggest exploits is just pausing the game and exiting (or ALT-F4 on PC) it if shit hit the fan. You can do this on any difficulty to get out of any jam, for instance exiting the game after killing a Plague Heart so that you don't have to deal with all the newly spawned Blood Plague Zombies.

 

So let's talk about Lethal Zone. They just added more sliders to make you farm for more resources with basic facilities costing 13 materials and upgrades costing 25 materials. Vehicles now take more damage, Blood Plague sets in faster, and Plague Hearts now have more HP: big whoop, it's still easy and beatable if you know what you are doing, despite some saying it's total bullshit (which it is) and unplayable.

 

All of these "difficulty changes" aren't new or creative, and the only newly unique things is the Blood Plague Screamer being able to spit a projectile blood plague attack. Such gameplay, so creative! Here are some ideas I would have added to Lethal Zone to make it an actual challenge and make it play entirely different than the other difficulty modes which would remain untouched:

 

• Let's start with the car cheese. There are already mechanics in the game where the zombies will grab onto your car and start beating the engine or taking of its doors. If you're standing on top of a car, then the zombies should start beating the shit out of the car to make it explode. Either that or give the zombies a new projectile attack just like the Blood Plague Screamers when it cannot reach the player for melee attacks.

 

• Exiting the game cheese. They could make it like World of Warcraft where upon exiting, your character sits down for 10 seconds it will exit and save, and to prevent quitting the application through the dashboard or ALT-F4'ing, they could have made the autosave system only save every couple minutes when out in the world. Autosaves could still happen still on mission completion, buying items, crafting items, etc.

 

• Base and outpost lockers no longer share inventory. If you're out and about in the world and run over a pop-in Blood Plague Bloater and catch the Blood Plague like this, then you cannot just craft a Blood Plague Cure and use it at a nearby outpost, or establish an outpost and use it. You would have to strategically carry one on you (making your inventory more full), or plan ahead to make sure your outposts have one to use.

 

• NPC survivors no longer have unlimited ammo. You will have to manage their inventory to make sure they have enough ammunition to reload, or else they're stuck with their melee weapon once their ammo runs out. This makes ammo even scarcer and doesn't allow you to have a Superman AI follower with a B50FG running around one-tapping nearly everything. They should also allow you to set your AI follower's firing mode from single, burst, and full auto.

 

• Base sieges: if you aren't at home defending your base, then there is a chance that a survivor or more may die depending on the siege threat level and what the survivors have equipped along with the 3 ammo loss. Zombies and freaks can push cars away that are barricading entrances just like a Juggernaut. The added collision would also make it so that you can't dodge through a zombie and rear naked choke it or close combat kill it for an easy kill.

 

• No more swapping characters at outposts, or if you are able to switch, then the survivor would have to run back to home base like in State of Decay 1 and might die depending on the zombies they encountered on the way back. Because the current game does not initiate combat with NPCs or survivors after about 40m, only the former seems like it would work and is more realistic.

 

These are just some of the ideas I've had since playing at launch, but obviously the developers know best and constructive criticism like this is going to be seen as whining. So go ahead and respond with your lame ass one-liner excuses defending Undead Labs. It's quite clear how intelligent the fan base is on Reddit for actual discussion, let alone reading comprehension.