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

[Sadeyx]

I've had some additional thoughts on this subject, thought I'd share my muse :3

 

What I find people sometimes struggle to understand is that Survival "mode" IS "Sandbox Mode" just with certain settings that the dev's have chosen, the game and objective is identical.

 

Same with Begginer mode, its just basically Sandbox mode with some easy settings.   At first players look at the starting screen and seem to think that Sandbox mode is an entirly different gaming mode, one to be explored later, a mode that the devs didnt really intend and only for those bored and want to play about with settings.  But its not, Project Zomboid IS a Sandbox game,  what your seing at the start is just a variety of pre-made settings.

 

The only different game modes will be Story mode... which presumably wouldnt have an "ending" or a "winning situation" either, I imagine it would just tail off into another Sandbox mode game for as long as you manage to stay alive.

 

Then there is 'Last stand'  Which is more like a 'scenario' just as story mode is more like a scenario, it has the same open ended sandbox mechanics just with a different starting situation and and pre-configured sandbox settings to alow this scenario to be controlled somewhat.   So ultimatly you could crunch Project zomboid down into two game types

 

Story mode - which then lists a variety of 'Scenario's including a tutorial, the Bob and kate story and Last stand..  - This leaves it open for maybe more scenario's as the game continues development. or players make their own scenarios via mods.

Sandbox - Which has a wonderful variety of pre-made settings, including tutorial/begginer, standard, advanced, 8 months later, survival.

 

You could even say that 'Sandbox' is the wrong term, since the game is already a sandbox.  Im not sure what alternative to call it though.  Maybe it just just be re-named to 'Survival' and then call the pre-set we know now as 'surival' something else like Hardcore or No-hope or mega ultra megath death mode

[Jabberi]

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 ):

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?

 

Just giving my thoughs on this subject, naming and organizing gamemodes and difficulties.

 

I think the most obvious organization is such that there are ( will be ) basically 3 game modes: SANDBOX, STORY MODE and LAST STAND 

 

Choosing Sandbox ( And maybe story mode too? I can't tell what your are planning for it ) will then prompt the player to choose difficulty, which could be one of these: BEGINNER - "For those that are new to Project Zomboid" EXPERIENCED - "For those that are seeking more challenge" CUSTOM - "Fully customized playing experience"

 

Didn't really think about those difficulty descriptions, but I think that above organization is very clear and easy to understand. Imo, putting CUSTOM ( or SANDBOX ) as the "normal" difficulty doesn't make sense, because almost no game does that and many players will choose the middle difficulty by default when they play the game first time and will get confused by all the parameters that they don't yet know the meaning of. 

 

I think you'll figure out some good way to do this, like with every other thing

[ChatNoir]

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.

 

 

What about?

This is how you learned to survive! - If you're a new player, start here...

This is how you survived on your own! - For the intermediate player. Choose from presets...

This is how you died! - The true, brutal and bloodthirsty Zomboid survival...

Last Stand - Should be separate, cause its another game style

 

When I first started PZ I saw this scary but promising sentence "THIS IS HOW YOU DIED". And I did die about 100 hundred times in the first 5-10 hours of gameplay. I was proud when I managed to survive just one 1 day. But this didn't scare me away, it was a challenge and finally, I have learned to survive. Now after 500 hours of PZ, I need "8 months after" settings to have the same pleasant challenge. So I really appreciate the new changes in game difficulty cause they really increase my chance of dying as promised - well as you said "THIS IS HOW I DIED".

[Blasted_Taco]

 

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.

 

 

What about?

This is how you learned to survive! - If you're a new player, start here...

This is how you survived on your own! - For the intermediate player. Choose from presets...

This is how you died! - The true, brutal and bloodthirsty Zomboid survival...

Last Stand - Should be separate, cause its another game style

 

When I first started PZ I saw this scary but promising sentence "THIS IS HOW YOU DIED". And I did die about 100 hundred times in the first 5-10 hours of gameplay. I was proud when I managed to survive just one 1 day. But this didn't scare me away, it was a challenge and finally, I have learned to survive. Now after 500 hours of PZ, I need "8 months after" settings to have the same pleasant challenge. So I really appreciate the new changes in game difficulty cause they really increase my chance of dying as promised - well as you said "THIS IS HOW I DIED".

 

 

Actually this is how you died sounds like a good name for me, i think most people when they first got the "This is how you died" thing got a shiver, is like the game is challenging you to survive and the game knows you will die, like you cant do shit against that but you will try and ultimatly die.

 

The "This is how you learnt to survive!" sounds like a kids camp of scouts moto at the end of a ceremony with a video montage.

 

Like i said, i dont think you want to make the player go "I dont need no stupid tutorial", you need somehow to convince the player to play the tutorial first.

[Rass]

 

 

What about?

This is how you learned to survive! - If you're a new player, start here...

This is how you survived on your own! - For the intermediate player. Choose from presets...

This is how you died! - The true, brutal and bloodthirsty Zomboid survival...

Last Stand - Should be separate, cause its another game style

 

When I first started PZ I saw this scary but promising sentence "THIS IS HOW YOU DIED". And I did die about 100 hundred times in the first 5-10 hours of gameplay. I was proud when I managed to survive just one 1 day. But this didn't scare me away, it was a challenge and finally, I have learned to survive. Now after 500 hours of PZ, I need "8 months after" settings to have the same pleasant challenge. So I really appreciate the new changes in game difficulty cause they really increase my chance of dying as promised - well as you said "THIS IS HOW I DIED".

 

 

Actually this is how you died sounds like a good name for me, i think most people when they first got the "This is how you died" thing got a shiver, is like the game is challenging you to survive and the game knows you will die, like you cant do shit against that but you will try and ultimatly die.

 

The "This is how you learnt to survive!" sounds like a kids camp of scouts moto at the end of a ceremony with a video montage.

 

Like i said, i dont think you want to make the player go "I dont need no stupid tutorial", you need somehow to convince the player to play the tutorial first.

 

 

I agree, "This is how you learned to survive!" doesn't really sound right. "This is how you died" is cool, but isn't it a little long for a game difficulty name, especially for people who haven't really played the game before? The "This is how you died" phrase has a place in the heart of every PZ player, but if you load up the game for the first time, it's just gonna be confusing.

Oh, and I don't know if it's just me, but using the term "casual" when talking about video games...

 

[wpisznazwe]

The attempt to view the problem from a newbie perspective

The whole deal is about making a strong, positive starting experience for the new players and not giving them too much choice while they don't feel familiar with the game - let's make a great tutorial and the PRE-SURVIVAL STORY!

I. General overview

PZ starts. You click Start game button. Now the available options are: Learning the ropes (story), Survival (proper game), Last stand and Sandbox. LTR mode has a not highlighted submenu with a bunch of locked presets (people love unlocking things!) - the first would be "The introduction" - also available as a demo version of the game.

This kind of menu would guide new players to start Learning the ropes story mode and also let the confident people play anything they want (even if somebody had started from Survival, he would have in mind, that there is something more suiltable for him at the beginning and probably came back to the LTR after the first death. Also so called story modes are very popular at the games' beginnings, because most people want to be guided at start!).

II Learning the ropes (story)

1. The introduction (tutorial, demo)

Here we HAVE TO show all the beauty of the game in a nutshell! The game becomes very deep and it will be very hard to notice this fact if people start the proper game during the first launch(it may become the last one - we dont want this!).

My idea is to make this a minigame preset. You are wounded, but not infected. Some guy took you onto his shoulders and brang to the safehouse (a part of the town, transformed with carpentry skills to a stronghold - player can see what he can build by his own - first impression). You are being checked for scratches and healed. There are npcs. Some of them are responsible for farming, some for carpentry, healing, fighting, cooking etc. You can learn from them and also do these things by yourself. Sometimes zombies are attacking the fort, but the brave guards shoot them out. You may also do it. There may be some guiding quests available. After some weeks, the density increases in the deadly rate (constant zombies' spawn). The fort is being destroyed. You may fight to the end and die, escape by a car and die, move on with other npcs and die or just die. Whatever. You die.

After that sort of experience, with lots of aspects of this great game touched, the player WILL want to learn to survive. after his death, the game saves the map and the next position unlocks.

2. Other Learning the ropes' story parts

The other parts would consist of tasks to do. You pop up some meters from the place, where the fort was destroyed some months ago (erosion!). Why? Use your imagination and create a story. There is no deadly horde, just everything destroyed. You have a task. You need to barricade a house near the destroyed, contaminated with dead bodies area of the former fort (still full of everything that one would need! All other places in the city would have very rare loot rate set and high zombies density, so moving on would be deadly). You would also have to survive the winter (let the newbies see the snow!). With lots of supplies it would be easy. There would be various tasks, whose completion and death would unlock another story part. Every part would have its own days survived record time shown, and it would be great to replay it for fun.

Next tasks would have had increasing difficulty and the other great things to uncover (lack of water and power, rotting food, deseases, npc friends and foes!). After completing all of them, there would unlock a softcore preset version of survival - all of the funcionalities would be on, but with the lower difficulty level set. The next step would be The Survival, Sandbox and Last stand modes (although available in every moment).

The experience would make players not confused with the variety of game's options and ready to try the Survival mode out.

That's my dream. Please, make it real!

[Dillerin]

Initiation - For your first Apocalypse.

 

Survival - Choose a preset difficulty or create your own difficulty.

 

Story - Experience the Apocalypse through the eyes of Bob and Kate.

 

Multiplayer - Let their be antagonists and allies.

[EnigmaGrey]

Alright guys, I think everything that can be said about this, has been.

Thanks for your help.