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Idea for reorganizing expectation of difficulty in the game. Thoughts?


lemmy101

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With all the major difficulty shakeup going on, as well as some people's expectation to be able to survive Survival, how about this?

Instead of all these game modes ballooning out the main title screen, how about we have:

START GAME, STORY, MULTIPLAYER

and that's IT... (story obviously added when Bob/Kate reintroduced)

then when you click START GAME, it pops up a menu that has options, defaults on beginner, and each has some text accompanying it (not exact text of course :D):

BEGINNER - If you're a new player, start here. Trust us, this game is brutal. Don't get cocky. Find your feet here or stress and humiliation will ensue. Etc.

SANDBOX - For the intermediate player. Choose from presets, or customize every aspect of your game to your skill level or playing preferences. Etc.

SURVIVAL - The true, brutal and bloodthirsty Zomboid survival challenge. It takes no prisoners, so don't expect to survive for long. How many days can you last?

LAST STAND - Blah last stand blah. Quick dose of BAM zombies everywhere eek.

They are ordered (except last stand) as such as a natural progression for players as their skills improve, and Survival is sufficiently put on a 'pro' pedestal to make failure at it not seem like failure of the game. Sandbox could default to a preset that's halfway between beginner and survival (while offering multiple presets for varying levels of skill / preferences) and have more information to convey their intent and difficulty. Survival is less stigmatized for being silly hard because its blatantly obvious that's what it is. people are less likely to click it without being aware of exactly what its point is or what pain they are potentially unleashing on themselves.

We then make the SURVIVAL survival time on death specifically say 'ON SURVIVAL MODE' to make it clear (perhaps adding a check for expected checksums to ascertain if the files have been modded, and reporting that. As such giving us back our survival time competition that was lost as the game's difficulty waned. Also we make survival mode force a new game world on each new game. Each game starts at day dot, and you can't stack multiple characters on a single world. It's a true competitive game mode again, as it's always an equal footing start point.

Thoughts?

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Provided that the new difficulty settings are tweakable in the sandbox, I see this as a good idea, however I think  PZ needs a proper tutorial, not something that goes over every little mechanic, but just the essentials. A way of ensuring that new players have a starting point and can build up from something rather than being dropped into a world and being forced to survive. 

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Provided that the new difficulty settings are tweakable in the sandbox, I see this as a good idea, however I think  PZ needs a proper tutorial, not something that goes over every little mechanic, but just the essentials. A way of ensuring that new players have a starting point and can build up from something rather than being dropped into a world and being forced to survive.

Yep that's planned - one was even half made at one point but fell by the wayside (and will be out of date before long anyway) but in the meantime reorganizing what we have is the only choice available :)

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Sounds good. Right now you need to use sandbox to make it hard-core, so the "I survived x many days" element doesn't really work well. Nice to have that come back.

 

And yeah, loved the post on steam. Just got back into zomboid after a year or so away, and I'm very hyped to hear you guys are going to ramp it up. 

 

I wonder... has This War of Mine been a bit of an inspiration?

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I don't know why Lemmy but this change made me feel like you guys have made a good start into getting into the core 1.0 mechanics of the game

 

Before the zombies just felt so stagnant, and boring

 

but now I find myself actually putting up sheets so zombies don't see me through the window, actually fearing the zombies, knowing that if just one sees me, they could bring many more along with them

 

I'm laughing and screaming 'you bastards!' at my monitor as 100's of zombies chase me through the city, forcing me to make my way into a lumber mill, then stupidly trying to get back to my safe house and getting eaten

 

this was just so unexpected

 

love everything you've done to the game in this patch

 

 

 

I'm really really really really really looking forward to when NPCs will make their way into the game, possibly making things a tad bit easier?

 

That or when you guys can make Multiplayer run smoother

 

That and I joined after the demo so I never got the chance to play baldspot story stuff, looking forward to that as well

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Calling it beginner is a bad idea if you want them to try it first. The class of gamer that plays computer games hates playing noob difficulty. A lot of people will pick the next one up, fail horribly, then hate playing beginner b/c they feel like failures. Call it Normal or something. It's not like you have a "Hard" and "Insane" that require you to use the "Beginner" pattern anyway. Don't take the word with the worst connotation for no reason.

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I kind of agree (and Will raised this very issue) however calling it Normal is a no no because it is NOT normal and we don't want to paint the impression that playing on this mode is a 'normal' PZ experience as it's not. Maybe we need a different name to beginner but we need some indication that its easier. If people forgoe it even with the accompanying text warning them explicitly, then they deserve to crash and burn and nothing we can possibly do can steer them :P

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It's your call. But the class of people that play videogames are not as cerebral as the class of people that design them. You know full well that explaining the rules in text isn't going stop them from getting all hurt and angry that they failed at what they *choose to believe* is their skill level. And 'We told you so right in the text' isn't going to assuage their feelings afterwards :3

 

I totally understand your math nerd mentality, though. But I doubt synonyms like 'Basic' would work as a compromise. You'd be better off inventing words like you did with Sandbox and Survival. Something like, 'Day 1' or 'Dawn' or something. If this is your first time playing, play from the beginning! The zombies aren't as numerous yet and you have more time to get set up before the difficulty ramps up.

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How about under the "Single Player" options, you have something like:

 

Exploration - If you're a new player.....etc etc

 

Sandbox - For the intermediate player....etc etc

 

Survival - The true, brutal, and bloodthirsty....etc etc

 

Last Stand - blah last stand blah....

 

 

At least it leave out the "beginner" tag.... :)

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Look at it this way. You are already breaking immersion in the way that you are choosing to explain the difficulties in the tooltips. Since you're already doing that, you can name the difficulties w/e you want. You don't need the baggage of bad connotations. When the player is actually in the game, he'll forget those tooltips, but he won't forget the difficulty he is playing. Especially when he gets to the scoreboard at the end and he has a shit score on 'BEGINNER'. Do you really want to emasculate a player who only paid $20 for your game? The chance of new players shoeboxing a game based on a bad first experience is much higher for budget indie games.

 

If you name the difficulties 'One Week After' and '8 Months After' or something, you remove the negative connotations. They do not know what those things mean because they've never played a game with those difficulty titles, so they are more likely to properly read your meta tooltips. And during the game, they won't be thinking about whether it's Beginner or Hardcore or whatever. They'll be thinking of the immersive title and be like, 'I died 19 days into the apocalypse!' or whatever.

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What about something like "First game" for the beginner mode, and you could include the tutorial when NPC are done.

Nice idea deprav - only problem is that the "beginner" mode or whatever isn't necessarily for players and their first game of PZ - it may be a mode that the more casual player users, or even a mode for players that want a "less intense" game of PZ?

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Imo sandbox need to be seperated from beginner and survival just like last stand.

Its sandbox so it can be way harder than survival or easier than beginner mode, depends on settings. So my order would be beginner, survival, sandbox, last stand.

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How about "Casual"

 

I also don't mind this. It's not saying "noob" or "beginner", or even "easy". There will be some who would still find a negative connotation with the term "Casual", and would want to play the "normal" mode, (and then probably complain that it's too hard...), but it's one of the better terms so far....

 

The problem with PZ is that the "normal" mode, or the way that the Devs envisioned the way the game should be played, is the hard mode. It's extremely common for games that offer different levels of difficulty to have options like "Easy, Normal, Hard, Extreme", or "Recruit, Veteran, General" etc etc, and most people will at least start on "Normal"...

 

With PZ of course, "Normal" is designed to be brutal and challenging, which is great, we just need people new to the game, or who want a less intense experience, to not feel that they're failing somehow if they play using a less difficult mode. "

 

So, "Casual" could be an option, or maybe "Regular"?


 

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I think Casual fit the best of the three, i mean, Casual is going to give you that, a casual expirence of PZ.

 

Survival is going to give you well, the shit hits the fan kind of stuff, but when you put it in the words "Survival" a normal new player will think that you have a timer on you and you have to kill zombies to gain points, cause really, every single game that has a "Survival" gamemode is about hordes of enemys going your way "AKA Last Stand".

 

"Surviving the Apocalypse" maybe gives you an idea of shit going down and that you are going to be on your toes?

 

"Casual game" gives you the idea of that is going to be a not so brutal expirence i guess.

 

And if we get multiple stories in the game, "Stories of the Apocalypse" gives you a sense of well, you are going to be following a story in the game.

 

I dunno, i am kinda bad with names, but man i just want this game to be brutal once again.

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I think beginner mode should be called "beginner" because that's what it is. "Casual" kind of have the same meaning as "Normal".

If anything I think "casual" fits more with the "survival" style, cuz that is normal for PZ.

I can imagine someone skipping "beginner" mode and die really hard, trying out survival, only to go back and play beginner a while... And after they feel somewhat used to the game mechanics they will fearfully click "survival", remembering that first brutal try that sent them to a quick merciless game over.

Once they master that game mode, then they will feel true accomplishment :)

Edit: I also agree as someone said before in this thread that there should be a description text next to the game mode, that would be simple to understand.

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I think beginner mode should be called "beginner" because that's what it is. "Casual" kind of have the same meaning as "Normal".

If anything I think "casual" fits more with the "survival" style, cuz that is normal for PZ.

I can imagine someone skipping "beginner" mode and die really hard, trying out survival, only to go back and play beginner a while... And after they feel somewhat used to the game mechanics they will fearfully click "survival", remembering that first brutal try that sent them to a quick merciless game over.

Once they master that game mode, then they will feel true accomplishment :)

There is no normal mode i think.

"Survival" is hyping up to be brutal shit, so in theory, "Survival" is hard.

 

So i guess Beginner is easy? Or normal? Maybe the two, so Beginner is going to be the normal mode, but not the real brutal PZ.

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I think beginner mode should be called "beginner" because that's what it is. "Casual" kind of have the same meaning as "Normal".

If anything I think "casual" fits more with the "survival" style, cuz that is normal for PZ.

I can imagine someone skipping "beginner" mode and die really hard, trying out survival, only to go back and play beginner a while... And after they feel somewhat used to the game mechanics they will fearfully click "survival", remembering that first brutal try that sent them to a quick merciless game over.

Once they master that game mode, then they will feel true accomplishment :)

There is no normal mode i think.

"Survival" is hyping up to be brutal shit, so in theory, "Survival" is hard.

So i guess Beginner is easy? Or normal? Maybe the two, so Beginner is going to be the normal mode, but not the real brutal PZ.

I see what you mean, but on the other hand who decides what is normal or easy? Not you or me, and the devs stated that survival is their normal :P so thereby normal doesn't fit with "beginner mode".

Now I'm not trying to pick a fight or disrespect you, but what I mean is that I want most users to pick survival and talk about it as if it was the choice to play the game as it is intended to be.

"Beginner mode" is only there to teach people to play and survive. "Survival" is the intended "normal" game mode for PZ, as the devs have stated before. :P

Maybe the name can be changed, but I only think this will fool players to think that beginner mode is how the devs want the "real" game experience to be.

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I think beginner mode should be called "beginner" because that's what it is. "Casual" kind of have the same meaning as "Normal".

If anything I think "casual" fits more with the "survival" style, cuz that is normal for PZ.

I can imagine someone skipping "beginner" mode and die really hard, trying out survival, only to go back and play beginner a while... And after they feel somewhat used to the game mechanics they will fearfully click "survival", remembering that first brutal try that sent them to a quick merciless game over.

Once they master that game mode, then they will feel true accomplishment :)

There is no normal mode i think.

"Survival" is hyping up to be brutal shit, so in theory, "Survival" is hard.

So i guess Beginner is easy? Or normal? Maybe the two, so Beginner is going to be the normal mode, but not the real brutal PZ.

I see what you mean, but on the other hand who decides what is normal or easy? Not you or me, and the devs stated that survival is their normal :P so thereby normal doesn't fit with "beginner mode".

Now I'm not trying to pick a fight or disrespect you, but what I mean is that I want most users to pick survival and talk about it as if it was the choice to play the game as it is intended to be.

"Beginner mode" is only there to teach people to play and survive. "Survival" is the intended "normal" game mode for PZ, as the devs have stated before. :P

Maybe the name can be changed, but I only think this will fool players to think that beginner mode is how the devs want the "real" game experience to be.

 

Actually...

I kind of agree (and Will raised this very issue) however calling it Normal is a no no because it is NOT normal and we don't want to paint the impression that playing on this mode is a 'normal' PZ experience as it's not. Maybe we need a different name to beginner but we need some indication that its easier. If people forgoe it even with the accompanying text warning them explicitly, then they deserve to crash and burn and nothing we can possibly do can steer them  :P

They stated that "Survival" is not their normal, is the real PZ hardcore expirence, but is not the normal difficulty of the game.

 

I think Beginner is the normal difficulty cause is not going to be as hard as "Survival" but not as easy either, is going to be easier yes but not easy.

 

That is why i think "Casual" fits best cause is going to be not too hard, not too easy, just a normal game, people dont like to read when they play games either, so they need a name that fits the difficulty.

 

Like i said i had atleast 2 friends who thought that "Survival" was a horde kind of game where you have a timer or you have to kill enemys, and "Sandbox" a game where you roam the map trying to survive without story.

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