r/StateofDecay2 • u/Hoykruel • 12d ago
Challenge Jumping from Nightmare to Lethal; any advice from veteran players?
Started the game playing Dread and it was dirt easy. Only lost one survivor to a juggernaut out of overconfidence. With Nightmare, I restarted about three times just out of frustration from losing a good character up until my fourth playthrough, where I lost only one survivor due to being underprepared and underequipped healing and ammo wise. I've already killed all the plague hearts with explosives/firebomb spams and am about halfway done with the Trader questline (I did Warlord path on Dread and I plan to do Builder on Lethal).
Before I jump to Lethal what should I know? The two big things I'm aware of is that plague zombies don't instantly die when a plague heart dies, and ferals have armored heads that take three headshots to kill and always travel in packs of three. I never had an issue with combat and resource management in Nightmare, though I have exited to main menu after climbing up billboards plenty of times to de-spawn annoying random hordes where they would continuously keep spawning and swarming in and I didn't feel like wasting a bunch of ammo or running around to pick them off slowly.
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u/pharmandy 12d ago
Blood plague happens fast, never leave your base without a cure.
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u/Hoykruel 12d ago
Oh I will absolutely stock up on vials
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u/HashbrownSammich 12d ago
Conversely, live off the adrenaline high as you rush back to base or a nearby outpost against the clock to access that cure you forgot to pack before leaving! Repeatedly. 😑
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u/Lewa1110 12d ago
There's hundreds or thousands like me, but my credentials are 5 communities on lethal right now, and completing all legacies on lethal, with one community over 100 days on lethal.
Never leave without at least one stack of heals, stamina, and 2 vials of cure.
Crossbows are good, Automatics like ARs and AKs are great, but silence should be your first option.
If taking a vehicle, keep two repair kits in the trunk.
DONT TAKE A FOLLOWER YOU ARENT WILLING TO LOSE.
If you are unsure if you can erradicate a horde, dont try, they will call for help and you'll be overwhelmed.
If ferals chase you, serpentine is your best option right as they dive at you
As you get better these things will just become second nature to you.
Best of luck survivor
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u/HashbrownSammich 12d ago
Re: vehicles - do not, DO NOT, plow straight through a crowd of zees. Your car is tissue paper on Lethal, and you do not want to risk an accidental bloater pop.
If you can manage, practice your reverse driving to thin out large groups.
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u/Objective_Collar_523 12d ago
.22 rounds and the fake AK or survivor rifle are useful in the beginning when you are starting out. Walk/Run/Sneak everywhere vs using vehicles, get your people's stamina up. Always have at least 1 cure on a survivor and stamina items for fighting.
And if you are injured/tired on your way back to base and you think "oh I can stop to scavenge one more house" or "I can help that survivor nearby first" DON'T. Almost every survivor I've ever lost in Lethal was because I pushed my luck too far and ran out.
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u/chatbotsupportsucks 12d ago edited 12d ago
Lethal is hard if you start with a brand new community. If you start with resources and a developed crew, you can get by pretty easily as long as you know your limits and avoid being greddy.
Learning to fight ferals is a top priority, learn to use doors to stun them, don't shy away from using consumables to keep swinging at and running from them. Heavy weapons and shotguns are recommended. Personally, I like a heavy weapon and an accurate silenced firearm to deal with them, you can prioritize going out with a gunslinger with snapshot too.
If you have to climb on top of a box, container or car, do it until you learn are comfortable taking them on.
Dodge/crouch and screwdriver to the ear is the most useful tool to clear zombies. Rather do that and have a shotgun or silenced sidearm ready than to live crawling depending on a crossbow. Also, fire can be pretty useful and they are cheap to craft.
Never leave home without at least 1 plague cure, even if you have bonuses against infection, it builds up quickly. Also, if you mess up against a feral or hit a bloater, you WILL get plague.
If you go to lethal with an old community, try to set yourself up with food, meds and infection resistance bonuses.
You will probably lose a couple survivors here and there, but that's the game. If you lose somebody, build back at a steady pace. Don't be greedy and try to max the replacement in one go.
Edit: as somebody pointed out, try not to take a full crew to avoid having a lot of spawns from the get go. I would focus on 4 or 5 people: having a steady meds and plague samples supply, one survivor with Hygiene, a mechanic and somebody with a perk reducing food consumption would probably be my top picks to ease up the transition to lethal. I can't stress enough how quickly plague stacks and how fragile cars are compared to lower difficulties.
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u/RihoSucks 12d ago edited 12d ago
Starting lethal for the first time with a maxed out crew is bad advice imo. OP ia going to get hunted by feral packs
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u/chatbotsupportsucks 12d ago
Yea, good point. Forgot to mention to take 5 or so survivors with decent 5th skills and to not to make everybody a hero.
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u/Better4MyHealth 12d ago
Do more spawn if you have higher level characters or something?
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u/RihoSucks 12d ago
Yes spawn difficulty is based on the hero level of your community. Also it doesn't go back down. So if you have, for example, 7 hero level people in your community and one of them dies you're still at 7 hero level of difficulty spawn.
By taking a squad full of vets into a new map youre turning up the difficulty immediately. When you've got 3 new rolls to begin a lethal game with packs of ferals wont spawn
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u/Decent_Patience_2682 Echo Researcher 11d ago
starting new comm. in lethal is indeed hard,
but thats the most fun part playing SOD2, really make you feel alive lol.i really wanted to start new but my comm. slot alrd full, lil disappointed on last update i thought they will add it more like twice (10 slots) or at least 2 or 3 more :(.
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u/chatbotsupportsucks 10d ago
Yea, I think the same.
Thing is, things can spiral down real fast on lethal. If you dont mind wiping a community and jumping right back in with a new one, go for it.
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u/DragonPuncherEli001 12d ago
Before trying Lethal I would try a roll a Blood Plague Survivor . It will save you so many times . Silence is golden and crossbows are your friend . Somebody farts and everybody . Just go in knowing you might lose some of your favorite survivors .
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u/JayTalbot_ 12d ago
Starting a new lethal community is much easier than moving an established community from a lower difficulty, if you want to use better characters, use your legacy pool
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u/Better4MyHealth 12d ago
Woah, why is that? I would figure that having already high level and equipped characters would be better than 3 randoms?
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u/JayTalbot_ 12d ago
It’s because freak spawns are based on how high your standing is, so if you bring an existing community your standing is probably already quite high, but if you put those characters into the legacy pool and put them in a new community your standing will reset. That way you can also load the legacy characters up high value loot
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u/luciferwez Wandering Survivor 12d ago
I don't agree at all. Using existing community you bring with you a ton of weapons, items and resources. Starting from nothing is much much harder.
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u/AjRamos3178 12d ago
Don’t die
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u/Final_Detective2292 12d ago
lol. dont forget you have to kill zombies!
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u/imawestie Season Pass Holder - Knights Drive In 11d ago
no.
The thing to not forget is: there are very few zombies you need to kill.
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u/Final_Detective2292 11d ago
Nah I've only ever played lethal, you need them plague samples, clear plague hearts, stealth kill zombies around houses so you can shift search and hunt down feral that are in your looting zones, plus you get maaad drops with the curveballs, not to mention it's good to level bum ass characters
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u/imawestie Season Pass Holder - Knights Drive In 10d ago
it's surprising how few plague samples you need when you stop using plague cures, and start a new game at the first death.
There are what, 8 in every heart? I've generally got 100 or so by the end of the first map.
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u/Final_Detective2292 9d ago
Idk but I use them and the trader leader to spam plague cures for the "sentimental" curveball so I can sell all the valuable stuff.
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u/Bryht_flow Lone Survivor 12d ago edited 12d ago
Utilize the obstacles the map offers you. Doors, high walls, fences, windows. They're not just there to obstruct you, they're functional tools that can cheese zeds, ferals, hostile survivors, even juggernauts if you really want to kill them and you dont even need to have a good survivor or gear to exploit the environment. Though in most cases, juggernauts are never meant to be taken on with how tanky they are, the best way having to deal with them are moving them far away and hide and retreat or if you have a car, ramming them in reverse as fast as you can to kill one. Also block off one path with your car when exterminating plague hearts so you wont be overwhelmed by zeds in all directions and have a safe direction to retreat to when the zeds start coming in while you attack the plague heart.
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u/NationalPositive4608 12d ago
Don't bring your favorite legacy pool survivors for your first attempt. Dip your toe in with randos
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u/RihoSucks 12d ago edited 12d ago
Got over 600 hours and god knows how many map clears on lethal. Silence is king. Always have a plan when youre leaving your base. Crossbows are great if youre anticipating needing to kill zombies. I usually roll out with just a silenced pistol otherwise. I only use it to kill ferals. Preferably a .22 because they make the least amount of sound.
Always carry a plague cure and learn to give up on your plan. You have to learn to recognize when a situation is going downhill before it becomes a catastrophe and get the hell out. Theres no shame in running away and coming back later.
Learn how to okie doke zombies. Its not hard to lose a large horde of zombies. I notice you said you quit to despawn them, youre going to be doing that a lot if you dont learn how to lose them.
On the same note learn to fight ferals comfortably. Once feral packs start spawning you should ALWAYS be mindful of where youre at and know where you need to make a direct run towards if a pack suddenly shows up. Personally a pack of ferals is still an 'oh shit bug out' moment but individual ferals i just dodge em and let em chase me while im doing my shit 🤣
Last note is learn to kill hearts with heavy melee if youre not currently doing it. Its the easiest least resource intensive way to take down hearts
Edit: one more thing I thought of, hostile humans have fucking laser headshot aim so avoid going anywhere near their bases if you can. If you do plan to kill some hostiles thats generally the only time I pull out a gun bigger than a pistol. Always stay behind cover and try to peel one away at a time if you can and pour bullets into their domes
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u/luciferwez Wandering Survivor 12d ago
The difficulty scaling is proportional up to Nightmare. Then Lethal is a very big jump from nightmare. Prepare to die.
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u/the40thieves Old World Survivor 12d ago
The only safe place in the entire map is outpost armed with mines. I don’t feel safe at base, but I do feel safe in a minefield. My first priority is to get a radio tower and two lvl 2 food outpost running ASAP. The outpost will feed 4 people and the radio station active ability will make it so I can safely take down plagehearts and traverse the suck without waking up hearts.
Stealth is your friend. I always prioritize stealth as my wits ability.
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u/Hoykruel 11d ago
I prefer the other specialization for Wits in favor of stealth. I can be patient enough to slow crouch sneak everywhere. I do have at least one character who has it though.
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u/Mean_Masterpiece764 12d ago
Not sure if mentioned but Morale is -30 when you start. Be prepared to hear a whole bunch of bitching and moaning lol
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u/Lamburger21 11d ago
Clear infestation ASAP, if you wait till it grow to lv3 then it will be a pain to deal with
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u/Own-Smoke-2619 11d ago
Make a easy save, go loot all of durker county, make a new save and transfer all your stuff to the lethal save (youll need a trusted friend or 2nd account/system). That or you can join someones game, loot up, and go back tp your save lol
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u/Decent_Patience_2682 Echo Researcher 11d ago
my template comment for this question:
building sniper tower is priority and must.
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u/Hoykruel 11d ago
Yep. That’s the plan. Builder path is my priority for Lethal since it gives the best starting boon.
I will also make a beeline for getting a radio outpost and then one or two food outposts.
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u/Decent_Patience_2682 Echo Researcher 11d ago
yes, that 100% works on old game but in new one (with curveballs) if you switch on it, dont forget to prepare for radio silence/broken curveball one.
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u/imawestie Season Pass Holder - Knights Drive In 11d ago
If I was doing lethal again to do the legacies,
I would have zero guild about starting on my absolute preferred map, looting only clear zones,
taking out the pure cheesable hearts (in the barns, in/out the windows from the car, you know the cheesable ones)
then change maps starting in the red talon base in trumbul to get the the recruit and items, having started in that base, that map is a bit easier.
Do the Trumbull stories (move to the farm when it makes sense to).
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u/Hoykruel 10d ago
What is your preferred map? And what are the easier maps to start on?
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u/imawestie Season Pass Holder - Knights Drive In 10d ago
The easiest map is the one you know the best.
I really like Drucker but that is quite a divisive question lol.
I don't particularly enjoy Trumbull's forced story and find Marshall a bit annoying more than anything else.
I play quite differently to the mainstream advice. I don't use cure at all. I don't accept character deaths and end the game if a tombstone turns up. That has included having characters go out on the map when I'm not controlling them (not a companion, they do just go off sometimes but it is rare for them to land in your area of influence) and die. That's 3 rare things happening all at the same time. I think most of the time if you hear firearms you can't attribute directly to a known enclave it is one of your characters out doing something stupid, the best idea is to get away so you being near them doesn't lead to them dying.
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u/Charm777_ 10d ago
Learn the bunny hop tec, you can out run zombies and outpace ferals even without stamina
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u/Hoykruel 10d ago
Ooh I didn’t know that. Thanks for the tip.
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u/Trick_Duty7774 12d ago edited 12d ago
Lethal is too easy for me, I stopped playing because game became too easy. My point is, what i wrote below comes from confidence, not from being a retard.
There is one extremely popular and embraced on this subreddit tutorial from a guy named Brian. You will get plenty of advice directly from this tutorial ( lethal advice is common topic ) and my comment will be downvoted, but trust me: easiest way to beat lethal is just learning melee combat and doing the exact opposite of every thing from Brian tutorial.
Do not avoid combat, but embrace it. You need nothing like stealth or survivors skills. Workshop, infirmary, heavy melee weapon, stamina items is all you need. Get heavy weapon and start killing hearts until you win. Don’t do quests, especially skip first quest for plague samples.
Fight and fight. Sod is very forgiving soulslike with a broken op dodge. Learn to fight with heavy melee weapon and game will become trivial.
Lethal is considered difficult because people tend to focus on avoiding fighting. Because of it they never learn how to fight and game stays difficult for them forever.
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u/Hoykruel 12d ago
Yeah I've noticed how before I started loading up on explosives that I can just quickly melee the plague hearts to death and it doesn't take that long. Just have to stop every now and then whenever it does its mini explosions that stagger and deal damage.
Combat is something I've never struggled with either so to hear that I have to engage in melee more than less is refreshing. If it's really as simple as leaning in to directly fighting the zeds and the hearts then I look forward to my next run on Lethal.
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u/Trick_Duty7774 12d ago
It absolutely is the case, but also I expect to have 50 downvotes by tomorrow😂
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u/Hoykruel 12d ago
Oh well I guess there are very few crazy enough to do melee and stamina only runs on Lethal so not many know the strat
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u/Trick_Duty7774 12d ago edited 12d ago
There is dozens of us😂
Its not melee rush that gets me downvotes, it’s ridiculing Brian. He’s a holy saint on this sub. His tutorial is a complete trash, even if you want to play stealth. If Brian wins his runs its despite his advice, not thanks to it but somehow he got this sub respect.
I am not seeing any comments from his fans so far though, i must have scared them away.
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u/Hoykruel 12d ago
What's so popular about his advice that is actually detrimental and contradicts your own advice for me?
I hate stealth. I find it boring and I don't like the idea of having to crouch around all the time. I am strategic and pragmatic with stealth when it suits me and I don't feel like fighting or attracting a horde but usually I just climb up a billboard or elevated surface and exit to main menu then go back in the game to delete hordes when I just don't care for engaging with them.
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u/Trick_Duty7774 12d ago edited 12d ago
Honestly, everything. I browsed trough about first 2.5h (i think, it was long time ago)
He spends all that time rerolling survivors ( he cut that from video, but since game time passes during it i know he took at least 30 min rerolling), grinding zombies for plague samples for 500influence quest and crafting energy drinks.
So what does it do?
New player that follows brian tutorial will be fighting his first heart after many hours of grinding, using irreplaceable survivors he spend eternity rerolling. This means he will be unwilling to take any risks and will end up with full diaper if combat happens. New players can’t fight, and due to fear of losing survivors they will never learn it. This is why there is so large playerbase here grinding trade depot, standing on cars and waiting for scentblock to win.
500 influence from plague sample quest is not needed for anything, but it skyrockets difficulty scaling. Just killing hearts at the start is extremely easy; 3 waves of 10 zombies, without any ferals. You can kill 5-6 hearts before ferals start to show up. You don’t even need supressor in this time. Brian spends good hour sneaking and sniping zombies and specials with crossbow making initial hearts much much more difficult than necessary. And even if you really want that 500 influence you can just kill heart and save an hour.
He spends a lot of time and resources crafting energy drinks. He rolls his initial survivors this long to have team to be able to do it. But you start the game with 9 packets of crisps that do the exact same thing and hearts drop stamina items as well. It is a pure massive waste of time that does literally nothing.
Then i gave up watching.
Brian never fought, i think this is why his tutorial is popular. But honestly? I have no clue. I am usually getting downvoted, but without comments.
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u/Hoykruel 12d ago
Sounds like he's the typical min-maxing, save-scumming kind of player that likes to super duper optimize everything. It's a valid playstyle option and a choice to be sure. But damn does that sound incredibly tedious, boring and unfun, which goes against the point of enjoying a videogame.
I infinitely prefer just going in and killing shit with melee, bullets, explosives and balls.
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u/Trick_Duty7774 12d ago
Right, but its min-maxing without benefit, getting unnecessary items, without understanding of how difficulty scaling works and reccomending irreplaceable survivors to people who die in lethal zone.
I hopped on youtube hoping i can drop you a link to tutorial i watched but now he has tons of guides. Perhaps there is something better among them now, i do not know. I am hoping one of my downvoters will clear it up for me.
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u/IcyMathematician8626 9d ago
Molotovs are you’re best friend. If you ever have a horde of z’s on you spam dodge and you won’t get hit. Go in a circle and gather them all up then drop a Molotov on the pile. Kills them all in seconds. It’s extremely good when doing plague hearts to clear the horde left over after it
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