Challenge on demand

[GOGOblin]

After building a fortress, burning half of the map, making a plantation of carrots on every roof of the town the player may want something strange for entertainment and some purpose to go on surviving.

Since we have no goal other than to survive - no dragon to kill - lets add some ingame challenges, to improve gameplay (mostly singleplayer) and to add some more "soul" to PZ. 

 

1) Collecting - as Scyoni mentioned in dannyisdude's literature suggestion - collecting books; or toys - like 10 different Spiffo figurines; food - some rare sort of soda, like nuka-cola in FO; some furniture or decorative stuff like garden gnomes. This could inspire travelling in singleplayer, exchange and some friendly competition in multiplayer. For now we have light bulbs and skillbooks, but this is not that much of interesting collection.

 

 

 

2) Making some complicated structure or mechanism. No cars - thats a pity, gathering details (and even smithing some of them) and fixing an old car could become a goal for a surviver.  Maybe starting a lumbermill in McCoy's Logging plant or fixing and starting some huge generator.

 

 

 

 

 

3) Achievements - hated by many - to inspire some feats like entering the westpoint mall, clearing the mall; surviving for a month, surviving for a year,; killing 100 Zs, killing 1000 Z's and others. Each "achievement" can rise stats or grant some trait (like the one, that nullifies panic), but the main purpose is to sign player's progress (on the way to this is how you died, kek). This also can be a measuring instrument for game balance and overall difficulty.

 

[Keshash]

6 minutes ago, GOGOblin said:

No cars - thats a pity

Well, vehicles are one of the main feature, that PZ needs to be finished, right? As for long term projects, I'd like to see some kind of boat, to die from boredom on it. And, there will be NPC communities, plots, intrigues to fight with.  

10 minutes ago, GOGOblin said:

Achievements - hated by many - to inspire ... others. Each "achievement" can rise stats or grant some trait

I don't really like that part. If you're talking about getting stronger and fear less with surviving more - then, it's already in. But achievements that grant stats - it's slightly too much. I'd prefer usual achievements or maybe just some small visual changes, like "you can wear box on your head,  if you have "Completely insane" achievement and highest insanity moodle.  Or Morrowind-style achievement, if you burn half of West Point "Now you can live in the cursed world, that you've created".

[GOGOblin]

15 minutes ago, Keshash said:

Well, vehicles are one of the main feature, that PZ needs to be finished, right?

Hmm, I'm not sure. Indeed I do not want to see (running) cars in PZ.  Because logic: if you have an offroad car - why stay in Muldraugh? The same is for a boat - its a gameover.

Also this:

 

15 minutes ago, Keshash said:

I don't really like that part. If you're talking about getting stronger and fear less with surviving more - then, it's already in. But achievements that grant stats - it's slightly too much.

Well, I think getting "coldblooded" after killing 100 Zs is ok, so is getting "axeman" after cutting 100 trees. But as I said the main Idea is a feeling od satisfaction for a character (and a player) - I've done it! - but unfortunately I cant imagine any challenge except for the damn mall.

 

Dev's could add some locations like "open air hippie fest" somewhere in the woods, so the player will have to cut through a crowd, to connect a generator and play something REALLY LOUD

BTW where the hell is Souhtpark map mod?

Edited July 28, 2016 by GOGOblin

[Keshash]

13 minutes ago, GOGOblin said:

if you have an offroad car - why stay in Muldraugh?

Well, you're right. That's exactly what I'd do in that situation - live somewhere in the woods, drive out on the looting missions! But! Cars it's: loud sounds, gasoline and maintenance. Mainly gasoline. Sounds fun to me.

 

Boats too - you have complete defence against zombies, but you have to eat only fish, have nothing to read, need combustibles to boil water, need knowledge to use sails/fuel for motor/need to live in very small space until you die.

 

I think, it's just a question of balance and amount of work.

[GOGOblin]

1 minute ago, Keshash said:

Mainly gasoline. Sounds fun to me.

Gasoline degrades, so a year or two and - no car.

 

7 minutes ago, Keshash said:

ou have to eat only fish, have nothing to read, need combustibles to boil water

Wut? Are you kidding?

Boats are awesome, screw fuel, screw Zs, life is good. But once you have a boat in Muldraugh (ok West Point) the game is over too.  And, according to google maps, people in West Point like boats.

 

Devs said "no procedure-generated world" so no cars, no boats, forget it.

[Zorak]

For gear the good solution is to make random quality for each item. Not that different than average but trust me if average axe have like 25 dmg you will find people that will spend hours to get that perfect sharp axe with 30 dmg.

It worked well for Diablo 2 where special items had statistic range like 10-20 vitality and whenever you drop one the rng did the magic.

 

Same can go for any weapon or clothing.

 

For other challenges I'd love to see some more scripted events. Like siege of our base. Spawn 2-3 waves of zombies, or group of bandits.

Random group of traders etc.

 

Achievements are nice but don't let them have impact on character stats.

[GOGOblin]

2 minutes ago, Zorak said:

Achievements are nice but don't let them have impact on character stats.

Why? Noone will be afraid of a Z after survivimg a month or two. 

I think fallout-style perks is a nice way to improve current XP-based skills.

 

7 minutes ago, Zorak said:

if average axe have like 25 dmg you will find people that will spend hours to get that perfect sharp axe with 30 dmg

Yeah, great idea..  And add some set armor.  Cannot agree with you at all, we seem to have different approaches to making the game better.

[Keshash]

30 minutes ago, GOGOblin said:

Devs said "no procedure-generated world" so no cars, no boats, forget it.

I am not sure what do you mean by that. By "no procedure-generated world" I understood, that there will be no terrain and city generation. And vehicles are confirmed. Sorry, I can't find proof right now. 

 

5 minutes ago, GOGOblin said:

Why? Noone will be afraid of a Z after survivimg a month or two. 

It's already in the game. Panic effects decrease with time.

[Zorak]

12 minutes ago, GOGOblin said:

-sniped-

Panic already work like that.

 

Ofc I don't want gear sets and bonuses its way too RPG but in real life items have different qualities. If you take few knifes or axes some are heavier some are sharper it's nothin special. But trust me, players like to collect items and they will hunt for those "perfect ones".

 

For other collectables I remember that Will wanted to put some random journals to the game. You will find them at different places and they add some flavor to the world.

[Geras]

I'd be cool to see prefixes for axes like:

 

Dull axe - less damage but can be sharpened into normal axe

Light axe - less weight, faster swing, less damage, less pushback, less energy needed to swing

Sharp axe - more damage

Heavy axe - more weight, slower swing, more damage, more pushback, more energy needed to swing

Heavy sharp axe - more weight, slower swing, more damage x2, more energy needed to swing

Light sharp axe - less weight, faster swing, normal damage, less pushback, less energy needed to swing

Sturdy axe - more durability

Sturdy heavy axe

Sturdy light axe

etc. etc.

 

EDIT:

 

Or even make the dull-normal-sharp prefixes dynamic - after killing x-y (trees chopped) zombies it degrades from 'sharp' to 'normal' and further, after z-n zombies it degrades to 'dull' status.

Edited July 28, 2016 by Geras

[GOGOblin]

33 minutes ago, Keshash said:

I am not sure what do you mean by that. By "no procedure-generated world" I understood, that there will be no terrain and city generation. And vehicles are confirmed.

I mean endless random worlds, like in Minecraft, each run is unique. DwarfFortress has a supermegaawesome world generator, for example.

Yes, vehicles are confirmed, but maybe not 4x4 jeeps and all roads are blocked with jams? Or vehicles!=cars. 

 

29 minutes ago, Zorak said:

Ofc I don't want gear sets and bonuses its way too RPG but in real life items have different qualities. If you take few knifes or axes some are heavier some are sharper it's nothin special. But trust me, players like to collect items and they will hunt for those "perfect ones".

There is no durabilty in Diablo, so investing in +1% items was not as useless as in PZ. Anyway I do not like this because (skill+luck)>>>>items IRL, but someone may like this math, ok. 

[Zorak]

There was durability in Diablo2 (but yea you could endlessly repair item for gold)

As you can see I don't want huge differences in that. Axe will still deal more dmg than knife.

 

[GOGOblin]

18 minutes ago, Geras said:

'd be cool to see prefixes for axes like

This could be nice, not only for weapons, but also for furniture. But it could make item names too bulky.

At least a "shitty" prefix for DIY stuff, made with low skill - with lower hp and other penalties. 

 

 

Its a bit offtop, the topic was about special locations or items, not stats. And  I do not want PZ to become another Diablo, it is already more Diablo than I want it to be...

Edited July 28, 2016 by GOGOblin

[Scyoni]

Personally I like the achievements idea - but you could try a twist on it by making them badges. Give each player another profile tab with more in-depth statistics (how many unique books have you read? Unique dishes eaten? total books? total dishes? Total zombies fought - total zombies killed. Number of carpentry projects completed. Plants harvested. etc.) and the badges they've earned from them. All for one lifetime - one character.

 

Then when they die, if someone else loots the corpse, pop up a window with the top badges the player had earned.

 

It sort of adds weight to the idea of their life. Here are their accomplishments. Here is the amount of effort lost. (and in PVP I'm sure some people would get a kick out of killing "the best <insert task here>")

[trombonaught]

On 7/28/2016 at 10:40 AM, Scyoni said:

Then when they die, if someone else loots the corpse, pop up a window with the top badges the player had earned.

I quoted this one but many of these ideas are pretty "gamey" and stray from the general immersion feel I think the game is going for.

 

That being said, "gamey" things that are already tracked- days survived, zed kills, and those in combination with different traits maybe- can maybe be used to unlock additional traits/debilities for later characters to use. For instance, unlock "cat's eyes" after surviving 14 days or something. 

 

To the other points- collecting and major crafting- this would definitely be a boon to the game. At a certain point a character (or a person for that matter) would move from a "surviving" motivation to a "living" motivation. Generating NPC/Player industry (as with the lumber mill idea), collecting better/worse/different items, making skill progression more concretely rewarding (to provide services for other NPCs/Players) are all things that would help the transition into "okay I survived, now what?"

 

As a last note regarding "gamey" attributes, I do wish the game provided a summary of the global XP points you have earned as a way to track the overall progress level of your character. Just for personal reference. You can survive 100 days without doing much, or you can survive 100 days with increased risk, reward, and overall drive which is only reflected by the XP you accrue.