Operation Killing you... not there yet :)

[Ohbal]

Hello again!

 

After a long PZ weekend, I'm emptying my brain of some feedback. 

 

I've been waiting for two months in order to have a look at all the changes implemented in game in a serious game, and finally last Friday I decided to give it  ago. I made a sandbox game tweaked to feel fast (2x experience) and accelerated erosion as I didn't want to spend too much time grinding skills. 

 

The game feels great, with the Erosion add-on the game world packs a punch in terms of inmersion. I like how the Zs create small hordes now, and how the non visited areas get re-populated with more and more undead. 

 

But the point of this topic is to basically share my impression, that the game is not trying to kill me yet. I have practically the same feeling as in my previous saved game.

 

Yeah, I can kill less Z's per hour now (before it was ridiculous). Now it basically takes time, but not so much to make it boring. Once you adapt your play-style to the new Rythm, things go alright. 

 

I wanted to check how the fire arms actually work after the re-vamp and grabbed my old toon who has almost maxed out aiming, and I didn't feel any difference (do I need to start over to see these changes?). I was 1-shoot killing with the pistol, and killing-spread with the shotgun. 

 

The biggest danger at the moment comes from falls (but I'm dealing with this sepparately) and fractures. 

 

Basically what I want to say is that the game is not trying to kill us yet. Some parameters were changed forcing players to adapt but once this adaptation is made the game feels the same way (or almost the same way) as before. 

 

I'm almost convinced at this point that the game won't get close to getting me killed until the NPCs are added. Until the Z's get somehow scripted to find your base and attack it periodically, its really easy (10-15 in game days) to get to a point of feeling too safe. 

 

What are your thoughts on this?

[Marco1]

!

[Lunov]

I dont like the idea of periodic attacks. Maybe there should be some chance modifier which could be also adjusted in server settings, that there will be actual chance of random number of zeds will attack your safehouse.

Also, when somebody from players dies, he should turn into zombie after some time, thus you would need to remove those corpses from your safehouse if the player died at home from infection for example.

 

And, another feature would be swarm of zeds passing your house meaning that you would need to switch off the lights and remain silent until they pass. That would be scary in very nice way

[Zorak]

I was also thinking about scripted zombie attacks.

You can find player bases by checking the loot number in house + any player made structures like barricades, walls etc. Then spawn X zombies Y tiles away and force them to move there.

[Leoquent]

I dont like the idea of periodic attacks.

 

I second that.

Should be more of an uncommon and with that more impressive occurrence in the late game.

 

I hope, that at some point there will be some sort of horde background simulation with increasingly large hordes moving more or less randomly on the map..

[Sadeyx]

I beleive default 'Survival' settings, yes, doesnt provide much challenge for an experienced player.

 

However, when talking about 'difficulty' in PZ I just feel it comes down to the loot.  The trouble as I see it is that the default 'rare' loot setting, is just not rare at all and most anyone can get an ample supply of food and weapons to survive within a few days.

 

So now I set the option to 'Extremly rare' and I find this is just about right.   With this setting it takes a good 2 months to establish what I would call a 'foot-hold' situation in the game, and isnt easy!  You need to be methodical with your loot runs, manage your inventory properly and manage your time correctly between cooking, carpentry and farming.  But once you do have this foothold winter seems easy to survive and if I had the patience, could arguably survive for many years.

 

I feel the lack of 'Game trying to kill you' or 'difficulty' as it might be refered to, comes from the mid-game and is 3-fold.

 

A) With foraging, fishing and traping 'Hunger' is never really an issue, I dont think I have ever felt dying of hunger was a real threat.

 

B) Base, once you have a base with walls you've killed all zombies in the vicinity, the 'meta-game-noises' dont do enough to produce 'wandering hoards' that you expect to test your defences, so your base just becomes something nice to build, as opposed to a survival function.

 

C) Injuries - the only injury you get really is from jumping through a broken window..., so if you are carfull, the whole medical aspect of the game is barly touched upon.  There could be a lot more injuries related to cooking, carpentry and farming.  Illness only comes from food poisoning, weather doesnt effect you.

 

Obviously, when NPC's are in... this could mix it up a lot, especially for injuries, but I still think there is more that could be done

[Rass]

I was also thinking about scripted zombie attacks.

You can find player bases by checking the loot number in house + any player made structures like barricades, walls etc. Then spawn X zombies Y tiles away and force them to move there.

Or perhaps make this work based on scent, once it's implemented. For example, cooking would produce enough smell to lure in zombies from such a distance that even if you killed all the zombies that were close enough to your base to smell your dinner, more would spawn soon.

Also if zombies had different levels of senses the same way as some zombies spawn as runners and others as shamblers, this could lead to interesting horde behavior-a single zombie smells you, a few more follow, but not all of them, so that a single campfire doesn't lead every rotter within 2 kilometers to your base.

[Ohbal]

Glad I'm not alone!

 

On the "scripted attacks", I'd like them to happen, honestly. I wouldn't like them to be "periodical" in the sense of "predictable"... but you should have your base tested once in a while. 

 

And, another feature would be swarm of zeds passing your house meaning that you would need to switch off the lights and remain silent until they pass. That would be scary in very nice way

 

That's the feeling I'm talking about. Hordes should be way more common. If you are awake and manage to turn off lights or any other activity that could attrack them to you, you may dodge the danger, but if you fail, things get nasty. 

 

 

I feel the lack of 'Game trying to kill you' or 'difficulty' as it might be refered to, comes from the mid-game and is 3-fold.

 

A) With foraging, fishing and traping 'Hunger' is never really an issue, I dont think I have ever felt dying of hunger was a real threat.

 

B) Base, once you have a base with walls you've killed all zombies in the vicinity, the 'meta-game-noises' dont do enough to produce 'wandering hoards' that you expect to test your defences, so your base just becomes something nice to build, as opposed to a survival function.

 

C) Injuries - the only injury you get really is from jumping through a broken window..., so if you are carfull, the whole medical aspect of the game is barly touched upon.  There could be a lot more injuries related to cooking, carpentry and farming.  Illness only comes from food poisoning, weather doesnt effect you.

 

The loot abundance could be one of the problems, but as you said, as long as there is "foraging" you won't starve.

 

Right now a base as you say is something you build for the fun of it. I've been safer while using a house each night than on my own safehouse where I broke two legs 

 

Injuries (if designed to act as a handicap and not as a fun-killer - fractures, I'm looking at you) could play a nice part on this, although "passive" injuries could feel as a punishment for the player... grinding carpentry is enough painful right now to add it a chance of getting injured and being forced to "stay indoors" for an in game week. The same with cooking after the power is out; its demanding enough right now, to add it chances of getting injured... However, if some way to avoid injuries is added (Worker / Cooking Gloves!!) this would fit nicely! 

 

 

 

For example, cooking would produce enough smell to lure in zombies from such a distance that even if you killed all the zombies that were close enough to your base to smell your dinner, more would spawn soon.

Also if zombies had different levels of senses the same way as some zombies spawn as runners and others as shamblers, this could lead to interesting horde behavior-a single zombie smells you, a few more follow, but not all of them, so that a single campfire doesn't lead every rotter within 2 kilometers to your base.

 

 

That's where I would go. Cooking, doing carpentry, cutting trees... every activity involving sound or smell could start attracting the horde. 

 

But... why do I mention scripted then on my first post? Well, maybe there is something I didn't understand right, but as far as I know, the game doesn't "manage" the world map entirely, it only loads the area you are in. Anything outside that area is not there... meaning it cannot go in your direction, or do anything at all. How could we attract what is not there? Scripting it is the only answer I can end with. 

Edited January 19, 2015 by Ohbal

[Lunov]

How could we attrack what is not there? Scripting it is the only answer I can end with. 

 

Thats what I was talking about. With some nice probability algorytm which could be changed in options for increased or decreased difficulty, I would be totally excited.

Hope the devs will make some statement to this!

 

[Sadeyx]

That's where I would go. Cooking, doing carpentry, cutting trees... every activity involving sound or smell could start attracting the horde. 

 

 

Which is essentially the 'Heat system' in the game '7 days 2 die'  The more activities a particular area see's the 'hotter' it gets.. and consequntly the more zombies 'spawn'

 

Its a good system in theory.. but fails in that game because 'spawning zombies' breaks the immersion quite a lot, and in reality, .. it doesnt really make the game any harder because death penality in that game is tame compared to PZ.

[Ohbal]

Haven't played 7D2D yet (I really don't like how the game looks, and saw one gameplay in YT in which zombies, dogs and whatnot were attacking the player base, with the worst animations I've seen in years... so crappy).

 

I agree that plain "spawn" of zombies in your area is not the answer to the problem, but something in between could work (horde approaching from the end of the streamed zone).

 

 

How could we attrack what is not there? Scripting it is the only answer I can end with. 

 

Thats what I was talking about. With some nice probability algorytm which could be changed in options for increased or decreased difficulty, I would be totally excited.

Hope the devs will make some statement to this!

 

 

I honestly can't see another way to solve the puzzle... but I'm no dev! We'll find out soon enough I guess

[Svarog]

 

That's where I would go. Cooking, doing carpentry, cutting trees... every activity involving sound or smell could start attracting the horde. 

 

 

Which is essentially the 'Heat system' in the game '7 days 2 die'  The more activities a particular area see's the 'hotter' it gets.. and consequntly the more zombies 'spawn'

 

Its a good system in theory.. but fails in that game because 'spawning zombies' breaks the immersion quite a lot, and in reality, .. it doesnt really make the game any harder because death penality in that game is tame compared to PZ.

 

But here's the thing, they don't need to be spawned, there is already a metagame system that allows for zeds to move in unstreamed areas, clump together, possibly break a window once a month. Zombies could simply migrate from many boring areas to an area that sees activity (building stuff, cutting trees, that's all loud as fck).

I've had something like that happen when I was foraging, sped time up x4 and suddenly, where there was no zombies, I was eaten by a random horde that came out of the woods, now why can't this happen when I'm firing a shotgun from the top of my 2 story safehouse desperate for some zombie attention? Meta zombies react to random sounds of helicopters and random gunshots, why can't my gunshot spread from streamed to meta and attract stuff from meta to my impenetrable gates?

Edit: Hell, a checkbox in Sandbox options that when checked will give zombies Last Stand AI for a day or two after random amount of time or every now and then and I'm all set.

[Zorak]

Scripted attacks but semi-random .

Mike the game calculate how long you survived, how much loot you gór and in general how well your dooing.

Then it create some zombie pack and sens them at your safehouse. In SP you.dont need Walla that much, once you clear the area only few zombies will migrate after that, no reall threat.

With that system game can throw more and more zombies over the time.

So 2nd base might be a good idea once your main one get swarmed.

[Ohbal]

I buy it!

 

There needs to be some degree of additional challenge send your way after the point one feels safe. 

 

When I started playing PZ, I didn't know how the game worked, so I was making moves trying to anticipate all these possible scenarios. Having a second safe house is a must and I tend to keep on building additional hidding places with supplies worth a couple of weeks. I was fearing horde attack (they were mention in the forums, unfortunatelly from older versions and I never saw these attacks) and always had several alternative plans to guarantee my survival. 

 

Once you know how the game works, all this (which ultimately is where the sense of danger comes from) is gone. 

 

but when you reach that point (10-15 in game days) it's "mission accomplished, do you want to continue anyway?".

 

It would be good to make a poll about that. How much time does it take (in game) to get to the feeling of "mission accomplished"? Once we get some data, a system could be built with this in mind. The more you survive, the thougher it gets!

[Talksintext]

However, when talking about 'difficulty' in PZ I just feel it comes down to the loot. The trouble as I see it is that the default 'rare' loot setting, is just not rare at all and most anyone can get an ample supply of food and weapons to survive within a few days.

Absolutely. I modded my loot rarity settings to be even lower than the lowest, while modding my hunger setting to double.

Now when I find a can of tuna, my reaction is "awesome, I will live for another day".

I was also thinking about scripted zombie attacks.

You can find player bases by checking the loot number in house + any player made structures like barricades, walls etc. Then spawn X zombies Y tiles away and force them to move there.

Or perhaps make this work based on scent, once it's implemented. For example, cooking would produce enough smell to lure in zombies from such a distance that even if you killed all the zombies that were close enough to your base to smell your dinner, more would spawn soon.

Also if zombies had different levels of senses the same way as some zombies spawn as runners and others as shamblers, this could lead to interesting horde behavior-a single zombie smells you, a few more follow, but not all of them, so that a single campfire doesn't lead every rotter within 2 kilometers to your base.

Something like this would be good. We just need some way for zombies to call in zombies from unloaded chunks, then have sounds and smells have a strong attraction. Wood chopping, cooking, and fresh or opened food should all attract from 100m or so. That's all that's required, nothing scripted, just sensible zombie behavior.

[Ohbal]

Something like this would be good. We just need some way for zombies to call in zombies from unloaded chunks, then have sounds and smells have a strong attraction. Wood chopping, cooking, and fresh or opened food should all attract from 100m or so. That's all that's required, nothing scripted, just sensible zombie behavior.

 

 

100 meter is way to small. I usually have all terrain around my safe house empty of Z's. 

 

Also, question about the bolded part... is that even possible with the game engine? I'm trying to understand the conflict between streamed content and meta content. 

[Svarog]

 

Something like this would be good. We just need some way for zombies to call in zombies from unloaded chunks, then have sounds and smells have a strong attraction. Wood chopping, cooking, and fresh or opened food should all attract from 100m or so. That's all that's required, nothing scripted, just sensible zombie behavior.

 

 

100 meter is way to small. I usually have all terrain around my safe house empty of Z's. 

 

Also, question about the bolded part... is that even possible with the game engine? I'm trying to understand the conflict between streamed content and meta content. 

 

I don't get that conflict either, sounds like random gunshots\choppers\screams in the background affect zombies in both of those as far as I know, I don't know why a player made gunshot can't work like a wave spreading from streamed into meta.

The way it works it genuinely feels like if it's not streamed it does not exist even though you can clearly tell that zombies in simulated areas are capable of moving around and interacting with simulated enviroment (break windows, doors etc.) 

It's like a one way barrier that allows meta events to affect streamed parts of the game to some extent but not allowing streamed events to affect meta game anyhow.

[Ohbal]

I don't get that conflict either, sounds like random gunshots\choppers\screams in the background affect zombies in both of those as far as I know, I don't know why a player made gunshot can't work like a wave spreading from streamed into meta.

 

You sure about this?

 

In my main toon game, I keep on hearing choppers, gunshots, screams from my safe-house, but not a single group of zeds have appeared in months. This meta-events work in the beginning, before you clear out the area around your safehouse. Once its done, as far as I have experienced, nothing comes your way because there is nothing around you... this is what makes me think that the "meta zombies" are never ever pulled in the streamed part of the map. 

[Svarog]

 

I don't get that conflict either, sounds like random gunshots\choppers\screams in the background affect zombies in both of those as far as I know, I don't know why a player made gunshot can't work like a wave spreading from streamed into meta.

 

You sure about this?

 

In my main toon game, I keep on hearing choppers, gunshots, screams from my safe-house, but not a single group of zeds have appeared in months. This meta-events work in the beginning, before you clear out the area around your safehouse. Once its done, as far as I have experienced, nothing comes your way because there is nothing around you... this is what makes me think that the "meta zombies" are never ever pulled in the streamed part of the map. 

 

I did see zombies start moving when they hear a sound, when I walked into meta part, zombies there were moving in the same direction as the ones that started moving when they were streamed (Yes I'm sire they were meta zombies, I was on max zoom out looking max ahead, I saw the area pop into existence and zombies were in process of migration)

At the very least we could get an option in the menu to allow for more cells to be streamed even if the player can't possibly see them, .it would likely break the performance unless one has good CPU but it would allow better challenge until NPCs come and with them, metaverse overhaul.

[Ohbal]

Awesome!!! There is still hope!!!

[Moose65]

I think their taking steps in the right directions, but here are some of the top offenders in my opinion.

 

1). Winter not functioning correctly yet. Disabling foraging was a great addition, but right now crops just chug along. The HP degen is too little, as its not even enough to kill crops with snow on the ground for over a month.

 

2). Worms. These guys need a serious overhaul. Shouldn't be able to dig them up during the winter, need to be able to rot (these things defiantly go bad, even in a refrigerator), and they need to be limited somehow. Right now you can dump 1 dirt tile on your roof and live forever off of these guys.

 

3). Level 4/5 cooking. Makes food management a joke. Get rid of it IMO, or implement a new setting for food that makes it completely unusable. Fresh > Stale > Rotten > Putrid (at this point its completely unsalvageable, and if you want to add compost later then there is still a use for it).

 

4). Foraging. Love this skill set, but there are too many non-perishables. Bugs and rosehips should definitely be able to rot. Mushrooms, violets, and grape leaves are debatable if you want to simulate drying them out, but I wouldn't feel bad if you made them able to rot too.

 

5). Zombie AI. Clumping them up was great. However, since I can still easily "rope a dope", their not anymore dangerous than before. AI needs buffed, if you aggro one from a pack, he alerts and pulls the pack with him. Its not unrealistic, and it needs to be done if you really want players to fear hordes.

 

With all that said, most of these changes would definitely help with the rooftop camping that is the current "endgame". I think NPCs will still be the real game changers, as zombies are simply too easy to work around, especially when you have a well established base.

[Ohbal]

snip

 

1. Agreed!

 

2. lol... I haven't ever eaten a worm in game, I would feel very miserable (and yes, I know they are protein sources and very appreciated by some cultures, but the game says -20 happiness for a reason )... if we could at least cook them... but I see your point . Another way of fighting this abuse would be making the "depress" moodle more dangerous (*).

 

3. This is a huge problem considering the amount of food stored in fridges. And it makes little sense. I completely agree with the addition of a "putrid" state. 

 

4. Nothing lasts forever

 

5. Indeed. If the groups of 10s and 20s you easily find could react together, it would change the picture. 

 

NPCs will surely change the picture, nothing is more dangerous than men... but this is still a Zombie game, and it would be great to have some kind of meta events that would guarantee you would fear the undead. I know I've said it repeatedly, I will shut up now (or try)

 

(*) A note on depression or bored moodles. I don't know if it was like this before, but now I feel like when my char is bored, he does things slower. With normal actions is barely noticeable, but when moving hundreds of bullets or picking planks I swear it felt slower... was like this all the time? Is this new? Am I nuts?

[Svarog]

(*) A note on depression or bored moodles. I don't know if it was like this before, but now I feel like when my char is bored, he does things slower. With normal actions is barely noticeable, but when moving hundreds of bullets or picking planks I swear it felt slower... was like this all the time? Is this new? Am I nuts?

 

I noticed that too, sometimes they do things much more slowly, it might have to do with tired moodles but I'm, not really sure, I never thought about it, thank the almighty devs for fast forwarding.

[Moose65]

 

(*) A note on depression or bored moodles. I don't know if it was like this before, but now I feel like when my char is bored, he does things slower. With normal actions is barely noticeable, but when moving hundreds of bullets or picking planks I swear it felt slower... was like this all the time? Is this new? Am I nuts?

 

 It's been like that for awhile. Depression makes "most" timed actions take longer, I suppose to simulate your character not wanting to do anything.

[AlphaArBar]

I think as of right now the game trying to kill you is coming along though.

I started a LAN game with my brother the other day after a break from playing and all I can say is that from last time I played and now. The game did a great job at killing us. We both survived a few days before being killed promptly. I think it still needs a bit more tweaking, however I as of right now it's a nice challenge, but once you've got your own base you're more or less sorted. The only thing that can kill you at that point is foolish mistakes (Like getting bit because you didn't release shotguns aren't as useful as they used to be... *headbutts wall*)