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Operation Fix Late Game By Killing You Before You Get There


lemmy101

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I'd rather have NPC's (both good and bad) than a rebalance.  I think that would add not only more difficulty but, more importantly, more fun as well.  Just getting back into PZ after a long time and from a few other topics I see NPC's will still be a thing.  Can't find any info on an ETA though and I'm hoping this rebalance isn't taking priority over NPC's. 

 

"Just play online if you want other survivors."

 

Never tried it, never will.  Not giving anyone the satisfaction of killing someone who just joined the server.  This is why I avoid most games that allow griefing.  So yeah, let's get those NPC's in there already please.  I got this game last year looking forward to the NPC's.  A year later I check in and now the big news is "rebalancing"??

What makes you think they're not still working on NPC's?

The rebalancing, and talk of fixing the late game issues doesn't mean that the adding NPC's is any further down the "to-do" list than previously...

 

As far as ETA's - they NEVER give ETA's, just the "when it's done" type ETA  ;)

 

Basically, what deprav said. With multiplayer, you just need to play on trusted servers. PVP is an option, some servers won't even have it turned on. I play mainly singleplayer myself, but have had some really fun games with multiplayer - makes me very excited to seeing the NPC's back in the game too!  :)

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The only issue I have with these ideas is with the idea for carpentry. My issue is this: As it stands practically everyone already picks the construction worker profession and by basically having building a base being much harder with other professions it's going to shoehorn everyone into the construction worker profession even more. I mean when it boils down to "you'll probably die before you ever get enough skill to protect yourself in any meaningful way." Who the hell would pick anything but construction worker and whatever hobby would give it more of a boost? I can see that stuff being something cool in MP but all SP games now will be running construction workers.

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Actually...building a base isn't much harder with the other professions.  I think most people pick construction worker because of the 'thick skinned' trait.

 

As far as why pick other traits...I guess it depends on your goals, concerns, and playstyle.  I choose Police Officer because I like to play on MP, and being good with a gun is a good thing when the bandits come calling.  I also love to build elaborate bases and I've never had a single problem doing that with the Police Officer profession.

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After reading through all these comments I simply have one thing to add.

 

First, great that fatigue will be constant and need rectifying once gained. Second, I sure hope this is moving to the devs letting us sit. I really really want to sit. Not being able to sit drives me up the wall. Everyone's going on and on about difficulty and zombies and NPC's but right now the one thing I really want, only, is the ability to sit down on my couch. lol

 

By the time this game is finished if I have my way it'll be "Project Sitboid". lol

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on one hand this sounds awesome on the other hand i really hope indiestone will give players more than just kill them

i really hope they flesh out farming etc a little bit more so that there is some kind of end game

it would be really unsatisfying for me just to die while knowing its because the devs dont want some kind of endgame

aside from that cut out all features and make a game like isaac ... its kinda senseless to have features like building but players cant use it because you want them to die instead of toying around with features the game have to offer

TLTR: really love that the game is going to be harder again but please do a propper endgame anyway and flesh out the existing features :)

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I don't think anyone's going to be shoehorned into construction worker. Some people, like myself, don't even settle down- I always move around.

Things are just really imbalanced right now- but fixing that is part of this :P

 

Yeah true, I never use construction worker. I tend to go for Outdoorsman because I can loot longer runs in inclement weather. And even if most people pick construction worker. There will be other professions in the future and I'd be willing to bet money that the ratio between for instance police officers and construction workers would invariably be more skewed towards construction. Since most cops would have had to respond during the initial outbreak. I can't see this as an issue anyway since your profession is known only to yourself.

 

Another thing is the "lucky" trait. I never use it and I routinely find brilliant loot, yet whenever someone chooses to use it, and then finds loot that is good, they are like "OMG LUCKY IS OP!". Try playing without it and notice that the difference is far from astronomical I can tell you that.

 

Still balance needs to be applied to all facets of the game, and the sooner this difficulty balance is implemented (even partially) the clearer the capabilities and nuances of NPC's will become. If you make the game too easy and then make the NPC's to survive on easy mode, then up the hardship and suffering, you will have NPC's that need to be balanced again. Just my 2c.

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I love that we are even having this conversation. When I started this game I remember wondering how anyone survives a week, let alone long enough to get bored and now I routinely "retire" characters because I feel like they are stable enough to say that whatever got them was not worth playing through until.

Some amazing suggestions have already been made but I think it stands to reason that after a certain point the main threats are not really the zombies. The first wave kills people because most people don't respond to emergency situations by smashing the brain of a crazy person. One the only people left are those that are brain bashers the threat comes from things like those suggested above. Storms, raiders, disease, and so on.

Keep up the great work folks.

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I know this isn't a suggestion topic and you probably have tons of ideas regarding difficulty, but maybe you could look into this style of fighting where you bash zombies with a melee weapon, instantly turn 180 degrees, run/walk away for a couple of meters, repeat. It doesn't feel very zombiemovie-like that every overweight average joe can do it, but is effectice tactic for every kind of character. If that could be nerfed somehow, it would make combat feel more threatening. I'm not saying it's not a fun way to fight and must be changed, it just feels bit gamey and nerfing it might be one way to make the game harder. 

 

Slowing the turning rate might make exploring houses fustrating, though, since it is fast and convenient to just turn your head to check both sides of a door after entering a room in real life and dying because you slowly turn into a wrong direction doesn't feel fair.  On the other hand, having some kind of exhaustion penalties for accelerating or sharp turns might feel unintuitive for new players. Slowing accelaration could also do the trick, but overdoing it might make controls seem unresponsive and isn't realistic anymore. 

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My points about food balance:

1) we need to tweak some numbers. 1 tomato or any other vege can keep you for a day ( by eating 1/4 each time). which is unreal.Imo it must be something about 75-100 hunger points for a day.

2) the well feed buff dont last long enough to make it worth it. Make it last a day or a half so eating more than we need might be a good option before long scavenge run.

3) high lvl cook need more benefits. like some bonus hunger reduction when meaking a nice meal ( 10+10 + 10 = 45 for high lvl cook) and/or well feed buff last longer if the meal is prepered by high lvl cook.

4) if you keep eating junk food , canned food you might get a debuff for a few days. It would be another reason to make a soup / salad and not eat those veges one by one of keep eating crisps / canned food all the time.

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Actually...building a base isn't much harder with the other professions.  I think most people pick construction worker because of the 'thick skinned' trait.

 

As far as why pick other traits...I guess it depends on your goals, concerns, and playstyle.  I choose Police Officer because I like to play on MP, and being good with a gun is a good thing when the bandits come calling.  I also love to build elaborate bases and I've never had a single problem doing that with the Police Officer profession.

I was refering specifically to the idea that, for the rebalance, the construction worker profession will get a level boost to carpentry so they will be able to build walls right off the bat. While other professions will only be able to barricade at the start.

 

Edit. I'd also like to add for some of the others. This wouldn't just affect the ability to build walls. It would also effect being able to build water barrels and pretty much any of the real meaningful constructions. Playing on the move is great, but eventually all the sinks and other fixtures will be empty, but guess what? You never bothered to level carpentry passed the point of being able to barricade. So now you can't build a rain barrel. Game over.

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Actually...building a base isn't much harder with the other professions.  I think most people pick construction worker because of the 'thick skinned' trait.

 

As far as why pick other traits...I guess it depends on your goals, concerns, and playstyle.  I choose Police Officer because I like to play on MP, and being good with a gun is a good thing when the bandits come calling.  I also love to build elaborate bases and I've never had a single problem doing that with the Police Officer profession.

I was refering specifically to the idea that, for the rebalance, the construction worker profession will get a level boost to carpentry so they will be able to build walls right off the bat. While other professions will only be able to barricade at the start.

 

Edit. I'd also like to add for some of the others. This wouldn't just affect the ability to build walls. It would also effect being able to build water barrels and pretty much any of the real meaningful constructions. Playing on the move is great, but eventually all the sinks and other fixtures will be empty, but guess what? You never bothered to level carpentry passed the point of being able to barricade. So now you can't build a rain barrel. Game over.

 

 

There's enough non-perishable liquids in the game to last you for years if you pace it right- you just can't find it if you're sitting in one spot.

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Actually...building a base isn't much harder with the other professions.  I think most people pick construction worker because of the 'thick skinned' trait.

 

As far as why pick other traits...I guess it depends on your goals, concerns, and playstyle.  I choose Police Officer because I like to play on MP, and being good with a gun is a good thing when the bandits come calling.  I also love to build elaborate bases and I've never had a single problem doing that with the Police Officer profession.

I was refering specifically to the idea that, for the rebalance, the construction worker profession will get a level boost to carpentry so they will be able to build walls right off the bat. While other professions will only be able to barricade at the start.

 

Edit. I'd also like to add for some of the others. This wouldn't just affect the ability to build walls. It would also effect being able to build water barrels and pretty much any of the real meaningful constructions. Playing on the move is great, but eventually all the sinks and other fixtures will be empty, but guess what? You never bothered to level carpentry passed the point of being able to barricade. So now you can't build a rain barrel. Game over.

 

 

There's enough non-perishable liquids in the game to last you for years if you pace it right- you just can't find it if you're sitting in one spot.

 

I dont play as a roamer, im exactly the opposite.

I got to the pz map project, find a place I like, go there, scavenge the building around, then go to a warehouse to get materials, and I completely forget about scavenging, I just build and build, never scavenging again.

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I don't think anyone's going to be shoehorned into construction worker. Some people, like myself, don't even settle down- I always move around.

Things are just really imbalanced right now- but fixing that is part of this :P

 

Yeah true, I never use construction worker. I tend to go for Outdoorsman because I can loot longer runs in inclement weather. And even if most people pick construction worker. There will be other professions in the future and I'd be willing to bet money that the ratio between for instance police officers and construction workers would invariably be more skewed towards construction. Since most cops would have had to respond during the initial outbreak. I can't see this as an issue anyway since your profession is known only to yourself.

 

Another thing is the "lucky" trait. I never use it and I routinely find brilliant loot, yet whenever someone chooses to use it, and then finds loot that is good, they are like "OMG LUCKY IS OP!". Try playing without it and notice that the difference is far from astronomical I can tell you that.

 

Still balance needs to be applied to all facets of the game, and the sooner this difficulty balance is implemented (even partially) the clearer the capabilities and nuances of NPC's will become. If you make the game too easy and then make the NPC's to survive on easy mode, then up the hardship and suffering, you will have NPC's that need to be balanced again. Just my 2c.

 

I think lucky also decreases the chance of a bite infecting you. But yeah.

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I know melee combat is being tweaked, but perhaps one way of balancing the game and making it more realistic is to increase how much panic messes with combat. Especially with hand to hand combat, it would make sense that someone running into zombies for the first time would not be able to calmly dispatch them in melee, even with a weapon. It wouldn't be worth it. For something like that to occur it would either take time for an adjustment or someone naturally brave and cool-headed.

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My points about food balance:

1) we need to tweak some numbers. 1 tomato or any other vege can keep you for a day ( by eating 1/4 each time). which is unreal.Imo it must be something about 75-100 hunger points for a day.

2) the well feed buff dont last long enough to make it worth it. Make it last a day or a half so eating more than we need might be a good option before long scavenge run.

3) high lvl cook need more benefits. like some bonus hunger reduction when meaking a nice meal ( 10+10 + 10 = 45 for high lvl cook) and/or well feed buff last longer if the meal is prepered by high lvl cook.

4) if you keep eating junk food , canned food you might get a debuff for a few days. It would be another reason to make a soup / salad and not eat those veges one by one of keep eating crisps / canned food all the time.

 

New player here (paid my five pounds in March 2012 but forgot I had until last month). I was really happy when I saw your post, because I've been thinking along similar lines in two ways, actually.

 

a. Boredom is not just about being indoors or eating stale food: in RL, I hate eating the same food day after day even if it's fresh and delicious. In fact, when boredom penalties first showed up on the food in-game, I thought it was because I'd spent the past week eating watermelon and was sick of it.

 

b. Malnutrition. Honest-to-goodness, this is the first thing that I thought of when I saw the top post of this thread. Let people chain-smoke cigarettes or eat raw coffee beans if they want to stay awake - make people chew daily vitamins as their first line of defense against scurvy, rickets, and every other deficiency disease you can think of, then watch them scramble desperately to find sources of their missing nutrients after the pills run out.

 

 

Regarding your (1): I just looked in my kitchen, and a bag of chips or box of cereal contains about ~1200 kcal, a can of soup ~200 kcal, a small tin of tuna ~100 kcal ... and a typical survivor is probably going to be burning 2000 kcal if they spend the entire day reading skill books and 3000 kcal or more if they're out working and fighting. That said, I think it would also be awesome to have the moodles tied to subjective caloric experience instead of actual stored energy: drink a soda, feel like a king for ten minutes, but eat three steaks and feel pretty good all day.

 

On which note: I think the Exertion debuff should probably go away faster if you've got a well-fed moodle. That makes sense with the idea of sport drinks, too: fast jolt of calories to replace the spent nutrients in the muscles.

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Hi Guys! Long time player here from pre 1.5d days!

 

Here are some of my suggestions to kill us more: (btw i def agree that the "kill us first" philosophy is the correct direction to go in for PZ endgame!)

 

1. Decrease weapon damage and durability. I played a bit a few days ago on normal mode and killed 98 zeds with one unmodded bat in one continuous killing spree during the 1st few mins of a new game with no skills allocated & no traits. I felt the bat should have broken maybe around 30-60 zeds. Perhaps 3 hits min to kill a zed for an unskilled person? No idea - just seem too easy to play L4D style at the moment. At least make us have to carry 2 bats or constantly be worried about duct taping it up during fights to keep us on our toes. You could even make it more hardcore and give us a chance to drop the bat or a zombie knock it out of our hands, forcing us to use our secondary weapons. Probably make a skill to not be disarmed so easy :]

 

2. Stamina System: Killing 100 zeds with a bat in one go is superhuman imo, esp for a new char. Things like the Exhaustion Mod/Passing are onto the right idea.

 

3. Better Zombie Footwork and Balance: Most zeds got knocked to the ground in one blow from my bat. Please give them better balance, because its almost mechanical killing them. ATM: 1 swing to ground them, 1 swing to pound them

 

4. Tougher Combat: I loved the changes in 2.0q (i think it was q?) that added growing and shrinking circles that simulated our accuracy for melee and guns. Maybe return this as a Hardcore option - Like Hardcore Reload, but for melee? How about axes getting stuck in zombies and we need to "pull it out" - that could create tense situations. Getting  "stuck" should be a big problem with edge weapons imo. And blunt weapons should be more tiring to balance - with longer recovery times after swings. 

 

5. Medicine and Antibiotics: I know you guys are working on this as well. But make scratches and other injuries have a high chance to get infected unless we use disinfectant and antibiotics. This would force us into making dangerous looting runs into zed filled areas to seek medicine. Deep lacerations should require we stitch up wounds as well to stop bleeding - it should be more effective if a friend/npc sews u up. 

 

6. More Jump Scares/Zed corpses indoors/Less Speed Looting: Right now i can break a window, loot a fridge, and be out of there before alarm draws a horde or even the indoor zeds eat me. Looting a house is one of the scariest parts of a zombie movie! Its dark, its unknown terrain, and there could be zeds anywhere!  Maybe have more zed corpses all over indoors slumped against walls and in hallways. We cant run in and speed loot since they may reanimate, so we need to slow down. More curtains so we cant peek in and know the lay of the land and zed numbers, and make it way way way darker indoors (At least for some houses/bldgs) so we need to use a light source). 

Anyways love the game! Keep up the good work Indie Stone - you guys are my fav devs by far!

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6. More Jump Scares/Zed corpses indoors/Less Speed Looting: Right now i can break a window, loot a fridge, and be out of there before alarm draws a horde or even the indoor zeds eat me. Looting a house is one of the scariest parts of a zombie movie! Its dark, its unknown terrain, and there could be zeds anywhere!  Maybe have more zed corpses all over indoors slumped against walls and in hallways. We cant run in and speed loot since they may reanimate, so we need to slow down. More curtains so we cant peek in and know the lay of the land and zed numbers, and make it way way way darker indoors (At least for some houses/bldgs) so we need to use a light source). 

 

This is a very good point. I remember how tense the game was when I first started playing. Entering a house filled me with a creeping sense of dread, of not knowing what might be behind every corner, or whether that door hides a zombie waiting to lunge at me.

 

That quickly faded as I discovered just how toothless zombies are in this game. I think that realization marked the death of treating my character like the desperate survivor the lore intends as opposed to the battle-hardened badass the game mechanics make him into. My last several playthroughs have been knife-only runs because it's at least slightly dangerous (although safely getting the jaw stab 100% of the time is child's play if you've ever played a parry/riposte build in Dark Souls).

 

I would love for looting to feel as tense as it did as a newbie again. A simple tweak that would help immensely here is to make 'e' actions reset your weapon timer and temporarily slow you. Right now you can charge your melee weapon and open a door while backing away, making hidden zombies a non-threat. If opening that door slowed you and made you lower your weapon (you did have to grasp the doorknob after all), suddenly things have become much more dangerous.

 

And as Akiruu said, more indoor zombies with better hiding please. Zombies can't open doors by default and hiding at home should have been common in such an apocalypse, so why are most houses completely empty with their curtains open?

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Having that challenge of survival should be put to the limit, as hard as it can get. I'm totally in for the idea of a beginner mode. I figured something like this should be added as some point. I'm all in a favor of the most difficult mode you can play, throw everything at me, give the challenge of living another day with so much death around you. Shit i'de be in favor of game starting with zombies chasing you right from the start, wouldn't mind me.

 

Other problems with having a difficulty setting is like most games, the AI for instance doesn't become "smarter"  its just the AI is given more bonus in various things and the player gets handicaps. Least with something like having 2 modes for instance we can separate the 2. The Beginner mode is a step by step learner, that gets the player mostly familiar with the game mechanics & play. Then when there ready that's when the fun really begins.

 

The official standard Hardcore mode then should havefer what a lot of us veteran players are looking for, being pushed as hard as we can to survive another day. I'm really looking forward to this!!

 

Yea and I agree with some of you, there needs to be more zombies inside buildings. I remember when I first played this, I ran to my first house, cracked open the window, ran up stairs, and the first door I opened, got swarmed by 2 zombies and died. I freakin jumped out of my chair, whoo good times. Don't get me wrong I find zombies in building buts its defiantly not like it was. I can't wait to die in again...

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I would love for looting to feel as tense as it was as a newbie again. A simple tweak that would help immensely here is to make 'e' actions reset your weapon timer and temporarily slow you. Right now you can charge your melee weapon and open a door while backing away, making hidden zombies a non-threat. If opening that door slowed you and made you lower your weapon (you did have to grasp the doorknob after all), suddenly things have become much more dangerous.

 

That's brilliant. I already disliked the telepathic-mouse-cursor style for door closing, curtain drawing, etc. - this would fix that immersion problem and bring some needed danger at the same time.

 

And as Akiruu said, more indoor zombies with better hiding please. Zombies can't open doors by default and hiding at home should have been common in such an apocalypse, so why are most houses completely empty with their curtains open?

 

Indoor zombies should be more common, but it would actually make sense of the starting situation if there were an evacuation ordered and you decided to disobey. I don't know the situation in Muldraugh, but up my way the roads are simply not built to handle all the cars that would be trying to make their way out of town ... and a massive gridlock that drives people out of the cars to walk on foot is a perfect recipe for outdoor zombies en masse.

 

(Not to mention the way the presence of vehicles adds to the crawler hazard. Is there a crouch key? :-D)

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6. More Jump Scares/Zed corpses indoors/Less Speed Looting: Right now i can break a window, loot a fridge, and be out of there before alarm draws a horde or even the indoor zeds eat me. Looting a house is one of the scariest parts of a zombie movie! Its dark, its unknown terrain, and there could be zeds anywhere!  Maybe have more zed corpses all over indoors slumped against walls and in hallways. We cant run in and speed loot since they may reanimate, so we need to slow down. More curtains so we cant peek in and know the lay of the land and zed numbers, and make it way way way darker indoors (At least for some houses/bldgs) so we need to use a light source). 

 

This is a very good point. I remember how tense the game was when I first started playing. Entering a house filled me with a creeping sense of dread, of not knowing what might be behind every corner, or whether that door hides a zombie waiting to lunge at me.

 

That quickly faded as I discovered just how toothless zombies are in this game. I think that realization marked the death of treating my character like the desperate survivor the lore intends instead of the battle-hardened badass the game mechanics make him into. My last several playthroughs have been knife-only runs because it's at least slightly dangerous (although safely getting the jaw stab 100% of the time is child's play if you've ever played a parry/riposte build in Dark Souls).

 

I would love for looting to feel as tense as it was as a newbie again. A simple tweak that would help immensely here is to make 'e' actions reset your weapon timer and temporarily slow you. Right now you can charge your melee weapon and open a door while backing away, making hidden zombies a non-threat. If opening that door slowed you and made you lower your weapon (you did have to grasp the doorknob after all), suddenly things have become much more dangerous.

 

And as Akiruu said, more indoor zombies with better hiding please. Zombies can't open doors by default and hiding at home should have been common in such an apocalypse, so why are most houses completely empty with their curtains open?

 

Oh the memories from the kate and baldspot tutorial.

Always friggin jumped from the zombie in the kitchen e.e

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