Enemies outlevel me

Archive Mutant Year Zero General Discussion
1

Hi,
so after trying a couple times now, I somehow don’t understand the balancing in this game. The first time I played this game back in 2019 or so I failed a couple times at the Hammon’s Cabin, because the enemies were 2 levels higher than me. After many attempts I just gave up and tried again later. Started even a new game and again at the same encounter I kept failing.

So yesterday I finally decided to give the game another chance and loaded my old save file and took a different approach by using the smoke grenade and molotov, which basically helped me dealing damage, without taking any for some rounds. That helped me to barely win that encounter. Happy to finally get passed that, so I might could start enjoying the game I kept moving towards the quest. Got the 3rd teammember the Huntress, so things seemed to get better now. Killed some dogs on the way, which game me a level up to 6. But the very next encounter at The High Road are enemies 4! levels higher than me and I need to get passed them. Is that on purpose? Do I have to sneak by them or really have to fight them? I kept trying a couple times and even though it looked good at first they just outdamaged me.

I kinda feel like the balancing in this game is quite off, or it fails to make clear, that I have to skip a couple enemies here and there to play through this game.

Some clarification would be nice, so I understand what I deal with here.

Thx

2

Being stealthy certainly makes it easier.

3

Ya I already tried to sneak around and kill the low hp ones silently. But there are only 1-2 that die that fast without others notice them. The rest still is higher level, so do I just try to skip them and kill later? Because the level 10 group I mentioned in The High Road, after those the next group also are level 10 (still 4 levels higher than me), even tho it is smaller group.

4

It’s been awhile since i finished my playthrough, but isn’t there another path with encounters available? You might need to go back home for upgrades too.

5

I just left “home” after visiting for the first time with a single quest, which I was walking towards to. There is one more path tho, I haven’t checked that out yet. I was assuming to only go there if I get a quest for that way?

/edit: okay turns out the other path to the east is a dead end with many level 5 enemies and lots of stuff to loot. I just made 5! level ups killing all these guys and now am equipped well enough to face the enemies now 3 levels below me. I think the game didn’t made it clear you sometime have to go a total different direction, just to gather some xp and stuff and then go back to the main path.

Thx anyways. I’m a bit disappointed, because I kinda expected a little more of this game, but let’s see what the rest of the game will be like.