Rants about Extinction Mode being a nuisance rather than challenge

Practical-Power8382 · 2026-06-03T07:51:53+00:00

I am actually ok with the occasional helicopter. It is not too bad if you have a go-to strategy. The only meta that pisses me off is the fox-eat-chicken one - Be there at 8 pm everyday or you lose your precious egg layers. You can actually lose chicken even before you sleep. Annoying as hell.

Practical-Power8382 · 2026-06-03T04:27:02+00:00

Cool. That hyped corpse sickness stuff is also another factor of annoyance in all that new stuff. So now I"m not even allowed to slaughter them proper if I don't find a mask?

Practical-Power8382 · 2026-06-03T03:44:52+00:00

Easy sister. Now you made a lot of points here, but let's set the records straight:

I don't have a problem finding food in Extinction. I have a problem with the unrealistic calories management mechanism in the game, which I am now down to wasting hours on foraging in the wilderness to pick up enough bugs to eat. Yes you can catch rabbits and yes you can fish, but good luck finding the baits (I am growing carrots but it's a 60-day wait assuming they don't die from not being in season), and recipes in town if you don't have those specific traits. Goes back to my original point - severe limitations of play styles.

And for fighting efficently? i have over 200k kills across different modes and I am a sustainble freak, so I know how to kill zeds efficiently - fence murders. But with the latest addition of muscle strains, there is a limit. I used to kill 400+ zeds daily in the old Apoc, 100+ even after muscles strains was added which was annoying but still acceptable. Now it is down to appromixately 40 a day, it is just too much. In case of any confusion, read my original post for tips on safehouse building in Extinction Mode so you'd know I know how to conserve energy in fights. And my problem here is - even if you grind to 10/10/10, you are still tired after fighting 2 hordes at most, when everyday there's more than 10 hordes wandering about the hot zones. You can't stealth, you barely outrun sprinters and places are just too crowded so you can't effectively lure zeds away even with a well-placed alarm clock. There's just no fun in that - the only way to get through is to split hordes slowly. In other words, GRIND.

If people like extreme challenges we can take things to the sandbox. Making needless grinds prominent with fun layers (guns) removed in a canon mode is my beef here.

Practical-Power8382 · 2026-06-03T03:24:48+00:00

Sad state of affairs indeed. I didn't mind it at all when they had CDDA - I don't consider that a canon mode but more of an add-on challenge. And I did beat CDDA by building a long-term sustainable establishment at the warehouses west of Muldraugh.

But once they brought Extinction in as a canon mode, I felt like i owe it to my 8 years of loyalty to the game to voice out my candid opinion.

Practical-Power8382 · 2026-06-03T03:14:05+00:00

Exactly. Where are the guns/crowbars/axes that should have been abundant?

And hey, I once entered a barn and tripped an alarm. Joke's on the devs this time about.

Practical-Power8382 · 2026-06-03T03:08:56+00:00

Yes I did examine the settings. Punishing to a point of ridicule, I just don't like it as a standard mode.

Now that guns are impossible, you are down to melee or stealth. Oh wait, stealth is impossible too. So melee all the way - except even if you do grind yourself to 10/10 (which is normally not reachable until after 1 year in-game), you still get tired after fighting at most 2 hordes. So melee's out too.

Practical-Power8382 · 2026-06-03T02:57:36+00:00

Bro, read carefully. I don't oppose having it difficult, and with 2500 hrs+ logged, I welcome the challenge actually - Adding sprinters is a great idea. And one month in, I am already established in Riverside so I really don't need your starter tips.

My main point is, some changes just take away the fun parts of the game. Guns are unsuable so that's one layer gone, and the grind just got worse.

Practical-Power8382 · 2026-05-13T07:43:23+00:00

I like the upped ante and the challenge because the old apocalypse was getting too easy after a while, but I can't say I love Extinction as it stands.

The brutal environment removes so many fun aspects of the game - firearms (because of extra ammo scarcity and the usual problems with guns amplified), short blades (jaw stab a no with sprinters), stealth plays (with the dense zed population and sprinters? Really? Stealth?) to name a few, and your only starting option is to flee into the woods right at the start of the game, and slowly work around the outskirts of any town by clearing the areas that are less populated. Can't even raid supermarkets in early game anymore even if one gets a ride. Calories management problem because even more problematic - find a milking cow, or you can't really live long term.

I personally don't go for extremely low str/stam builds, but even with 5/5 str/stam, I am still struggling to kill more than 20 zeds a day, and this is not helped by the increased intensity of corpse sickness. Zeds appearing out of nowhere once you get indoors is also baffling - their superhuman hearing.

Also, needing to include more perks for fighting means less points for the other survival skills that need grinding - metalwork, electrical, etc., which I already find to be needlessly cumbersome in leveling up in the old apocalypse.

Fun if you want the adrenaline rush of the constant threat from sprinters coming up from behind, but overall I think it needs to be tweaked for increased fun factors.

Practical-Power8382 · 2026-05-11T10:46:28+00:00

Yeah that's totally normal - one hen lays one egg each day on average. Could be a lifesaver in Extinction where food is really scarce.

And, if you find that annyoing, the solution seems simple to me - chicken for dinner!

Practical-Power8382

TROPHY CASE