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Released: Vehicle Tech Test build


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On 5/12/2017 at 4:40 PM, MashPotato said:

re: crops; yes, I'd like to add back in vegetation at some point, but the way things are right now, the vegetation doesn't change (which is how we ended up with perma-corn).  I wouldn't consider the fields a finished product :) 

Coming here from the issue tracker, you actually solved me an OCD of picking all the corn just to avoid it being wasted whenever I decided to camp near enough the Muldraugh's farm (especially since it was find to distinguish harvest horns) :P. Also, my old requests about reskinning the empty containers are no longer relevant and there's one odd container less to worry about :). Clever move!

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49 minutes ago, EnigmaGrey said:

. . .  Baycon, you have the gift of distraction and of locomotion.

Of course it's not necessary, but if you're going to sit in the middle of the place, they're going to come to you.

 

This is definitely something that needs to be dialed down by quite a lot, a significant change. Not in small increments, for the sake of both gameplay and realism.

 

Zed come out of the woodwork from blocks away to chase your car down, when in reality the sound leaving your average supermarket parking lot while you are parking is a stretch enough enough as is.

 

Sure, you can use them as a more effective distraction tool because of the unrealistic sound dome they create, but that shouldn't be intended. Usually this would require the use of a horn.

 

State of Decay is a good example of vehicle noise, the faster you are going (RPM noise) the "circle of sound" created around the vehicle increases as well, and if you intend on using them as a distraction, that is what the horn is used for. 

 

Zed on the roadside see/hear you and follow, if you want to generate a horde, purposely use your vehicle to create noise (the horn) and form a train.

 

If you are cruising down a residential road, decaying zeds (and people in general) would realistically not be able to hear you from beyond the closest houses. Couple this with the mixture of surrounding buildings/trees, natural ambiance, horde noises and occasional sound events. The pinpoint hearing for where cars are will ultimately be the most common complaint about vehicles if they are released and the current level of sound is intended.

 

You can barely hear other vehicles from inside your own vehicle (and this is exactly why drivers shoulder check everytime they signal because sometimes a car sneaks into your blind spot and you have no idea that they are there).

 

Thankfully, ironing stuff like this out is what test builds are for, and I have full confidence that the developers will do the right thing based on feedback. I'm sure the current levels of sound are placeholder until proper balancing is complete.

Edited by Kim Jong Un
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To be quite honest, Kim, I intiially felt the same way.

But we had an earlier test build where zombies only responded to car start up from a short distance away. It made the game very easy because you could just clear the nearest block and not have to worry about more zombies approaching. So, even if it's unrealistic that a car  starting up can be heard from two or three screens away, it may be a necessary change as far as balance in the default campaigns is concerned.  This may need to be decreased to make Six Months After the Apocalypse playable, but is otherwise fine for Survival. Having a sandbox option for it is a must.

 

These are, after all, meant to be a reward and hard-won item, not unlike guns. Though many will dismiss out of hand or with minimal experimentation, that's fine. More the reward for them when they figure out how to adapt.


Sound shouldn't be a fixed value, though. We do need more variety:

-Engine quality affecting how loud a car is on start up

-Engine quality affecting the base volume of a car when running

-Engine power affecting maximum volume at high RMP

-Speed of the vehicle and RPM affecting sound radius

-Fuel type (diesel vs gasoline) affecting sound radius

-Abusive driving increasing sound level (sharp  turns, squealing tires).


Giving players more control over the noise they produce would, of course, be fair.
 

It may also be a good idea to set a maximum on the number of zombies that can follow one vehicle before stragglers break off, ensuring entire areas don't empty completely.

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3 hours ago, EnigmaGrey said:

. . .  Baycon, you have the gift of distraction and of locomotion.

Of course it's not necessary, but if you're going to sit in the middle of the place, they're going to come to you.

 
 
 
 

 

An idle car is even quieter than one in motion. However, when a car successfully starts, some of them can be loud, so, fair enough. Other than the fact that they still aren't loud enough have the current radius of attraction they do, I won't try to maneuver my way out of that one. 

 

2 hours ago, EnigmaGrey said:

To be quite honest, Kim, I intiially felt the same way.

But we had an earlier test build where zombies only responded to car start up from a short distance away. It made the game very easy because you could just clear the nearest block and not have to worry about more zombies approaching. So, even if it's unrealistic that a car  starting up can be heard from two or three screens away, it may be a necessary change as far as balance in the default campaigns is concerned.  This may need to be decreased to make Six Months After the Apocalypse playable, but is otherwise fine for Survival. Having a sandbox option for it is a must.

 

These are, after all, meant to be a reward and hard-won item, not unlike guns. Though many will dismiss out of hand or with minimal experimentation, that's fine. More the reward for them when they figure out how to adapt.


Sound shouldn't be a fixed value, though. We do need more variety:

-Engine quality affecting how loud a car is on start up

-Engine quality affecting the base volume of a car when running

-Engine power affecting maximum volume at high RMP

-Speed of the vehicle and RPM affecting sound radius

-Fuel type (diesel vs gasoline) affecting sound radius

-Abusive driving increasing sound level (sharp  turns, squealing tires).


Giving players more control over the noise they produce would, of course, be fair.
 

It may also be a good idea to set a maximum on the number of zombies that can follow one vehicle before stragglers break off, ensuring entire areas don't empty completely.

 
 
 
 

 

NOTE: I just read this back, and to be honest, I seem like an arse. I just want everyone to know that I get passionate when debating and I don't mean any harm or insult anyone. I appreciate all the work Enigma has done to keep this community clean, and this is by no means a personal attack. We just disagree on one mechanic of a game, and I don't want anyone to think I see this as anything more than that. I repeat, I have nothing personal against Enigma. I actually like him, we just disagree on this. Cheers. :)

 

See this is reasonable. When we debated a little bit in the another thread, your arguments amounted to "Stop whining and learn to adapt, they're fine as-is." You didn't seem to express the idea that there was any room for improvement. I might be mistaken, or I might have misinterpreted your messages, but I didn't get any sense that you wanted any changes. I disagree with the statement that "[It] is otherwise fine for Survival." I don't believe that, without even leaving the same block, or exceeding school zone speed, that I should have a Radius of Attraction of about 3 - 4 blocks. I will never change my opinion on that. Knowing TIS and their love for torturing the player, I know that the use and maintenance of vehicles was going to be a challenge, and I was looking forward to that. Hard-to-acquire parts needing to be replaced, the increasing rarity of fuel later in the game, and so on. What I had not anticipated, on the other hand, was the use of the cheapest form of challenge in any zombie game: the oh-so dreaded horde... Because I know TIS is more talented and crafty than that.

 

I'd seen that talent when they started to punish me for thinking I could climb through a window I had just broken without getting glass stuck in my hand. 

I'd appreciated that creativity when I was crippled with a ridiculously slow walking speed for 2 in-game weeks for accidentally jumping from a second-floor balcony.

I had come to admire all of the ways that the player can screw themselves over when I started a fire in my house, was put on the run in the middle of the night, became tired, had hordes on my tail constantly (this was before I found out how to lead them away and lose them, or use what I call The Lasso Method - creating a line of zombies, and wrapping them around buildings or homes you won't find yourself entering any time soon.)

 

It just felt cheap to use hordes as the greatest threat to the player's use of cars, when I know TIS is capable of doing so much more. Here are some examples of what I would do if I knew a lick about programming this game (though I may sound like it, I don't want to come off as a guy who thinks he knows more than the experts).

 

- Worn or damaged tires from accelerating too quickly.

- Terrible injuries from crashing (which I know are coming) such as anywhere from a few scratches, to multiple fractures, scratches, and deep wounds all over the body.

- Wearing your engine or muffler from accelerating too abruptly.

- Leaving a car's heater or headlights on will make you come back to an empty battery.

- Excess damage to the sides of the car can cause doors to jam, including the trunk in the back.

- [For after animation build] Crashing at a high enough speed can cause you to fly through the windshield if you haven't got a seatbelt on.

 

These are just a few examples of making the cars more difficult to use in a much less contrived way than "Start that engine. I dare you. It's gonna look like Comic Con out here boi. Do it. I dare you."

 

Image result for comic con lines

 

BUUUUUUT I know it's just a test build, so I'll just chill out on this until we get a final build.

Edited by BayCon
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1 hour ago, BayCon said:

I will never change my opinion on that. Knowing TIS and their love for torturing the player, I know that the use and maintenance of vehicles was going to be a challenge, and I was looking forward to that. Hard-to-acquire parts needing to be replaced, the increasing rarity of fuel later in the game, and so on. What I had not anticipated, on the other hand, was the use of the cheapest form of challenge in any zombie game: the oh-so dreaded horde... Because I know TIS is more talented and crafty than that.

 

There just . . .  doesn't seem to be any need of this, given the setting. It's a few days / weeks into the zombie apocalypse.  Why would these cars be broken down, requiring specialty parts, a loot hunt, and a skill to repair? Why would they be so rare?

 

The scarcity of fuel at least makes sense. Quarantine followed by a run at the pumps would mean fuel will be scarce; countering that, hording would be profound.  Finding cars on egress paths without fuel, choking the roads, surrounding blockades makes sense in that scenario. Occasionally coming across the mother load (a  car with a full tank, in someone's driveway or tucked away somewhere) would fit the game well.

 

A case could be made, of course, that some of those cars will simply be left behind because they're faulty, but the player's capable of exploring a large part of the map, rendering the need to scramble for parts and fix it kind of pointless. That's more of a long-term problem, assuming they make them as fragile as generators.

 

The idea that everything needs to be locked behind skills and bizarrely rare items has worn me down over the years, even though I originally championed the idea. There's not enough content for a mechanic skill to really be valuable; there's no synergies with other professions in the game that might be relevant (e.g. metal worker), and there's little content that could fill 10 levels of a skill for it. It just seems unnecessary right now.

It'll be enough of a challenge to find the keys (or hot wire the car), get lots of gas, dodge zombies (when a proper damage model is in place), clear roads, and fill your vehicle with booty before heading to Sir Twiggies and waiting for this all to blow over, surely?

 

Is using the game's main protagonist effectively enough that you find it challenging to work around really not crafty?

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I must say that in the beginning of the game, scavenging gas should be relatively easy (important if you are in multiplayer). If it's balanced to be difficult to find in single player, that's understandable, but from a logic perspective there would be so many abandoned vehicles to siphon from that it wouldn't be nearly as valuable until multiple groups are competing over the resource.

 

Traffic jams on highways, abandoned vehicles - unless somebody siphoned from those vehicles already, you could get a year's worth of gas easy from traffic jams.

 

In fact, I'd be more surprised to see vehicles without gas at all if you are playing from day one. Not that I don't expect them to be there, but if half of the vehicles lying on the side of the road or in parking lots were empty I'd be a little confused at the logic.

 

A singular car off on a backroad, the chances of it being abandoned due to lack of fuel would be likely.

 

But a traffic jam of cars, where many cars are boxed in by other cars in an obvious case of "jam at the doors" panic... that's a few tanks of gas and oysters of loot just waiting to be looted.

 

Not to mention large parking lots, a lot of the vehicles sitting from before the outbreak that have been left behind. 

 

Gas is a necessary resource, but there aren't many drivers around anymore. It shouldn't be considered a scarce thing unless somebody is beating you to all that siphoning. That's when I think the rarity of it would change naturally to becoming as scarce as it would be.

 

The one issue about making things scarce on purpose is that the possibility of other players (and potentially NPCs) should be considered before making that judgement. One player can work off of a traffic jam of gas for a long time, but if it's PZ multiplayer and a few groups have to take from the same pile, somebody may start hording and it will reach that point where everywhere you look, somebody has been there before you.

 

A mechanic profession, I must disagree with you on, though. 

 

A lot of mechanics, especially ones involved in bodywork, would be familiar enough with welding to gain a +1 to metalworking.

 

As how doctors are just good for medicine, a mechanic could be good for vehicles and possibly metalworking on the side. Not just that, but the profession is common enough in the rural setting that many people would have it. You could justify having the side effect of boosting other trade stats because of the tool knowledge and the fact that a lot of being a mechanic is bodywork and electronics.

 

There could also be the hobby trait of having mechanical experience (+1 mechanical).

 

The other issue with not having the mechanic skill is that no other profession would have that knowledge by default. Growing tomatoes and cooking bread is not as complicated as knowing how a car works and what every part does. 

 

The content behind the skill levels could be diagnosing issues (something is wrong with the engine VS the spark plugs are worn), fixing the issue (I don't know what to do with these parts VS replacing the spark plugs), harvesting parts from other vehicles (I don't know how to do this VS I'll just take this fresh set from here, they look new) and finally, the chances of successful non-replacement repair, whether it is fixing loose cables or banging out dents in bodywork.

 

It wouldn't be the most prolific skill, for sure, but it would have just as much content as farming and metalworking. It would be a missed opportunity to not include something for the skill. I understand why you would think it doesn't have a place but there's enough justification for it IMO.

Edited by Kim Jong Un
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27 minutes ago, Kim Jong Un said:

I must say that scavenging gas should be relatively easy (especially if you are in multiplayer) if you are starting at the beginning. If it's balanced to be difficult to find in single player, that's understandable, but from a realism perspective there would be so many abandoned vehicles to siphon from that it wouldn't be as valuable until multiple groups are competing over the resource.

 

Traffic jams on highways, abandoned vehicles - unless somebody siphoned from those vehicles already, you could get a year's worth of gas easy from traffic jams.

 

In fact, I'd be more surprised to see vehicles without gas at all if you are playing from day one. Not that I don't expect them to be there, but if half of the vehicles lying on the side of the road or in parking lots were empty I'd be a little confused at the logic.

 

A singular car off on a backroad, the chances of it being abandoned due to lack of fuel would be likely.

 

But a traffic jam of cars, where many cars are boxed in by other cars in an obvious case of "jam at the doors" panic... that's a few tanks of gas and oysters of loot just waiting to be looted.

 

Not to mention large parking lots, a lot of the vehicles sitting from before the outbreak that have been left behind. 

 

Gas is a necessary resource, but there aren't many drivers around anymore. It shouldn't be considered a scarce thing unless somebody is beating you to all that siphoning. That's when I think the rarity of it would change naturally to becoming as scarce as it would be.

 

The one issue about making things scarce on purpose is that the possibility of other players (and potentially NPCs) should be considered before making that judgement. One player can work off of a traffic jam of gas for a long time, but if it's PZ multiplayer and a few groups have to take from the same pile, somebody may start hording and it will reach that point where everywhere you look, somebody has been there before you.

But you don't start on day one in PZ in Survival; the mode that sets the tone for the rest of the game. You're coming into this  weeks after the Apocolypse has already began. You're living in a small town under quarantine. That means there's no gasoline being delivered to feed the couple of thousand cars and however many generators might exist within this area.  Gas stations need regular deliveries to cope with demand -- demand that'd be higher when  panic sets in.

 

Cars in parking lots might simply be left behind because it's owner could only make it one way. Likewise cars on the road. Or cars trying to make it out of the area and being turned away.


Multiplayer just doesn't matter for this. Add the necessary sandbox options and change it yourself.

 

Quote

 


A mechanic profession, I must disagree with you on, though. A lot of mechanics, especially ones involved in bodywork, would be familiar enough with welding to gain a +1 to metalworking. As how doctors are just good for medicine, a mechanic could be good for vehicles and possibly metalworking on the side. Not just that, but the profession is common enough in the rural setting that many people would have it. You could justify having the side effect of boosting other trade stats because of the tool knowledge and the fact that a lot of being a mechanic is bodywork and electronics. There could also be the hobby trait of having mechanical experience (+1 mechanical). The other issue with not having the mechanic skill is that no other profession would have that knowledge by default. Growing tomatoes and cooking bread is not as complicated as knowing how a car works and what every part does. The content behind the skill levels could be diagnosing issues (something is wrong with the engine VS the spark plugs are worn), fixing the issue (I don't know what to do with these parts VS replacing the spark plugs), harvesting parts from other vehicles (I don't know how to do this VS I'll just take this fresh set from here, they look new) and finally, the chances of successful non-replacement repair, whether it is fixing loose cables or banging out dents in bodywork. It wouldn't be the most prolific skill, for sure, but it would have just as much content as farming and metalworking. It would be a missed opportunity to not include something for the skill. I understand why you would think it doesn't have a place but there's enough justification for it IMO.
 

 


That's a profession, not a skill.

A mechanic skill would be . . . fixing cars? Is that really going to be so necessary to justify it's existence? To make it valuable, most cars in the game would need to broken or of low quality; items would need to be added to "fix" those cars. Suddenly cars would be locked out for a large number of players. Or we don't and the skill / profession is ultimately pointless.

 

We just bring the same silly scarcity of guns and carpentry items to cars; the same one that limits generator use now; or moving large items.

 

It's the apocalypse. If your car breaks, you don't need to fix it: you go steal Greg's. He doesn't need it anymore. Being America, there's two or three cars per house.

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That's still not changing the fact that next to nobody is driving anymore. The world is your oyster. The logic you used to "go take Greg's" applies for fuel as well. Those cars stuck in traffic jams or left in parking lots do not need it anymore. 

 

There's just nobody competing with the player over the resource, so unless the gasoline left behind by the "late" survivors just ups and walks away, there isn't much holding it back from being available in areas outside the fuel pumps.

 

And a mechanic skill would be:

45 minutes ago, Kim Jong Un said:

...diagnosing issues (something is wrong with the engine VS the spark plugs are worn), fixing the issue (I don't know what to do with these parts VS replacing the spark plugs), harvesting parts from other vehicles (I don't know how to do this VS I'll just take this fresh set from here, they look new) and finally, the chances of successful non-replacement repair, whether it is fixing loose cables or banging out dents in bodywork.

 

I know quite a lot about what it takes to make a car run myself, growing up in a rural area similar to where the game takes place.  So there's more to it than just "fixing cars". I can tell you right now that most cars on the road today have mechanical issues, many that the owners do not know about. And that is a fact.

 

I also know that cars probably won't respawn, so what you get is what you have. It would be nice to not leave it on the side of the road when the engine starts to knock. That's all.

Edited by Kim Jong Un
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Just now, Kim Jong Un said:

That's still not changing the fact that next to nobody is driving anymore.

 

There's still the entire area of West Point and Muldraugh to go? Where-ever they end up drawing the boundaries, it'll no doubt still be a sizable area. People aren't going to walk to get supplies / seek companionship / flee.

It's not like everyone just instantly turned into a  zombie.  There's "nobody driving anymore" when they're gone, not before.

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14 minutes ago, EnigmaGrey said:

 

There's still the entire area of West Point and Muldraugh to go? Where-ever they end up drawing the boundaries, it'll no doubt still be a sizable area. People aren't going to walk to get supplies / seek companionship / flee.

It's not like everyone just instantly turned into a  zombie.  There's "nobody driving anymore" when they're gone, not before.

 

The context behind that quote wasn't arguing the justification behind using cars, it's the fact that most of the people who used to drive/own vehicles are dead.

Edited by Kim Jong Un
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10 minutes ago, EnigmaGrey said:

It's the apocalypse. If your car breaks, you don't need to fix it: you go steal Greg's. He doesn't need it anymore. Being America, there's two or three cars per house.


I have to admit, if cars can break (as I feel they should, even if it's only wheel damage, battery replacement and maybe some sort of simple engine repair), there should really be a way to fix/repair them to some degree. Unless you completely smash/total the thing with extreme body damage of course.

It could be a few simple items and maybe a recipe book/trait or two if it was really an issue. That way it's not over the top, and sure, you can find Greg's keys and take his car, but you're not always going to be near other cars out in the country, and who knows, you might actually just really like "your" car and wanna keep it around :)

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7 minutes ago, Kuren said:


I have to admit, if cars can break (as I feel they should, even if it's only wheel damage, battery replacement and maybe some sort of simple engine repair), there should really be a way to fix/repair them to some degree. Unless you completely smash/total the thing with extreme body damage of course.

It could be a few simple items and maybe a recipe book/trait or two if it was really an issue. That way it's not over the top, and sure, you can find Greg's keys and take his car, but you're not always going to be near other cars out in the country, and who knows, you might actually just really like "your" car and wanna keep it around :)

My point is that there's no real point locking it behind it's own skill and/or profession.

 

We already have enough of them that are almost empty, just essentially containers for buffs.

 

17 minutes ago, Kim Jong Un said:

 

The context behind that quote wasn't arguing the justification behind using cars, it's the fact that most of the people who used to drive/own vehicles are dead.

I'm saying those people may have burned through that gas before dying.

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How about the underused Metalworking skill? Carpentry has a whole slew of uses and levels up. I have to jack up the loot to common in order to find enough sheets of metal and such to justify actually using it.

 

Now if we had Metalworking or changing it to "Engineering" or "Mechanic" in order to have metal barricading, car mechanics and hopefully car mods (Such as the Bus in Dawn of the Dead Remake or in Left 4 Dead). These are cars from 1993, they don't nearly have the computerized components as modern cars do.

 

Also, the cars are too damn loud. At this point I think the actual horn makes less noise. Revving the car to higher speeds should impact sound more than "It is a car"

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53 minutes ago, EnigmaGrey said:

My point is that there's no real point locking it behind it's own skill and/or profession.

We already have enough of them that are almost empty, just essentially containers for buffs.


Honestly, I agree. I personally feel like there are far too many things, that your average person could figure out, locked behind skills and professions. I feel like you could give most people a tire, jack and a tire iron or a flat and a compressor/pump and they'd be able to figure it out. And while it's pretty simple, I could see some dangers in not knowing exactly how to replace a battery, so I could see some people having issues with it not being locked behind some small trait/book and/or hidden in the electrician profession (but then again you could just say the instructions are in every car so no one needs to worry about learning it). The only reason I really suggested the trait/book requirement was because I know it's been the preferred mechanic in the game so far, and I only threw the engine maybe in there since I recalled seeing engine quality in the info panel.

I really think having some kind of basic "replacement" type repair for a few parts in the info panel as well as adding tires to the equation would add a lot to cars and make them more fun and interesting in the long run though :) Regardless of them being locked behind skills or not :)
 

Edited by Kuren
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2 hours ago, EnigmaGrey said:

My point is that there's no real point locking it behind it's own skill and/or profession.

 

We already have enough of them that are almost empty, just essentially containers for buffs.

 

So what is the idea to do it then? How will you give the player the option to fix their car?

 

4 hours ago, EnigmaGrey said:

It'll be enough of a challenge to find the keys (or hot wire the car), get lots of gas

 

And how you will hotwire a car too? I doubt that killing random zombies for the key of a car is going to work, hot wire is going to be the most useful skill, but how it will work? Begin locked behind a profession or as a trait (that probably is going to become one that every character must have)

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15 minutes ago, Blasted_Taco said:

 

So what is the idea to do it then? How will you give the player the option to fix their car?

 

 

And how you will hotwire a car too? I doubt that killing random zombies for the key of a car is going to work, hot wire is going to be the most useful skill, but how it will work? Begin locked behind a profession or as a trait (that probably is going to become one that every character must have)

 

Wouldn't hotwiring be part of the electrical skill set? Perhaps non-electrically inclined survivors could steal their cars by breaking the ignition lock with a hammer and then just using a screwdriver to start the car? Granted, that would be very noisy and time consuming. And you'd probably be more likely to break something than actually start the car due to not knowing what the hell you were actually doing. But it would be an alternative...

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Well IMO sound for guns and vehicle is a problem. I dont want to nerf them to the ground.

A good sound for vehicles is 1-2 screens

And for guns 2-3 screens.

 

I know that ballance is important but as it is now we almost never use guns and it will be the same with vehicles.

 

IMO the good way to ballance them is:

For Vehicles: finding working car, fuel and maintenance.

For guns Ammo and skill.

 

In this way you can keep them away from beeing OP but still usable.

 

Fuel right now is a great "currency" that you can use it for so many key things (flame bombs, generators and now vehicle)

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What if convert electric skill into mechanic skill and just give them abilities to repair cars/creating tools?

I think it's logical that the mechanic could easily found a way to create a radio or make some easy electric work.

If that would done those skills became much more valuable, because they don't seems so vital, for generator you can found a journal for example

So that's my thoughts

 

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11 hours ago, EnigmaGrey said:

That's a profession, not a skill.

A mechanic skill would be . . . fixing cars? Is that really going to be so necessary to justify it's existence? To make it valuable, most cars in the game would need to broken or of low quality; items would need to be added to "fix" those cars. Suddenly cars would be locked out for a large number of players. Or we don't and the skill / profession is ultimately pointless.

To be fair, I find the engineer profession to be even more niche than a mechanic would be. I think it would add more to the game, because there's so many simple issues they could add to the car that could require low to high level skill to fill in 10 levels. They could even add in automotive magazines to teach some repairs.

 

Here's a short list of things that could be interesting to fix and/or simply loot from other cars to replace:

 

Corroded battery - Repair with either cleaner or a can of soda. Easy recipe to implement.

Flat tires - Use an air pump at a gas station (while the power still exists), or loot an air compressor from a garage/auto shop (would require power or generator).

Replacing a tire - Requires a tire wrench, probably found in the trunk of most cars.

Replacing a window - Could be a high skill version (actual window replacement), or a low skill version (trash bag, would obviously only keep you dry in the rain).

Changing Oil - Could be simply adding more oil, or even replacing all of it.

Radiator - Either fixing one (high skill level) or trying to patch it by pouring water constantly in it (low skill level).

 

I'm sure someone more knowledgeable could add in some more stuff. I think its fine adding in, as it gives players more options. They may have a vehicle they really like, and they would have to weigh fixing it VS stealing another. On multiplayer servers, this profession could become even more valuable as players are either trashing or stealing all the other vehicles.

 

As a side note, I think this would be a perfect time to make the burglar profession pretty useful. If their able to hot wire cars, its gonna be pretty desirable as I imagine keys will be hard to find.

 

Edit Edit: As a side note, as far as synergy with other professions, I could see welders making modifications to vehicles to reinforce them (such as replacing the windows with metal bars) and what not.

Edited by Moose65
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I'm not sure where the idea is coming from that most people know basic vehicle repairs. I worked in an auto shop for quite some time as a student. Completing an oil change doesn't mean putting new oil in. It means replacing the filter, letting the nasty sludge drip out into a collection bin. And a lot of people don't know how to do that. I've written a dissertation on why high schools removing mandatory shop class is a bad idea and the kind of crap I saw in the shop is no exception to the point. The majority of vehicles on the road right now have some mechanical problem or issue that can be fixed, a lot of them that the owner does not know about, and that is a fact.

 

Changing a tire (correction: changing a wheel out with a spare) would be something somebody would figure out, and a lot of cars do have a tire iron in the trunk, but installing a leak-free tire requires special tools that can't just be hand-installed.

 

Stuff like replacing entire engines/transmissions require specific knowledge to do properly. If the game just gave players the ability to do it out of the box, I would probably say "hey, whoever decided this really undervalues mechanics."

 

Point being, there is enough content for a mechanic skill if the game seriously values the inclusion of vehicles. It's not free knowledge on how to do this stuff and a short magazine read just doesn't do the job justice. If a player needs to learn to weld, to bake bread, and how to re-line a fishing rod, there is no reason to assume that the average joe knows how to do these things either.

 

If it were anywhere as complicated as it should be, it would be similar to the medical profession's skill, replacing the body chart with a diagram of the car and bandages with whatever aid the vehicle needs, minus the life-and-death aspect to it.

Edited by Kim Jong Un
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16 hours ago, EnigmaGrey said:

 

There just . . .  doesn't seem to be any need of this, given the setting. It's a few days / weeks into the zombie apocalypse.  Why would these cars be broken down, requiring specialty parts, a loot hunt, and a skill to repair? Why would they be so rare?

 

The scarcity of fuel at least makes sense. Quarantine followed by a run at the pumps would mean fuel will be scarce; countering that, hording would be profound.  Finding cars on egress paths without fuel, choking the roads, surrounding blockades makes sense in that scenario. Occasionally coming across the mother load (a  car with a full tank, in someone's driveway or tucked away somewhere) would fit the game well.

 

A case could be made, of course, that some of those cars will simply be left behind because they're faulty, but the player's capable of exploring a large part of the map, rendering the need to scramble for parts and fix it kind of pointless. That's more of a long-term problem, assuming they make them as fragile as generators.

 

The idea that everything needs to be locked behind skills and bizarrely rare items has worn me down over the years, even though I originally championed the idea. There's not enough content for a mechanic skill to really be valuable; there's no synergies with other professions in the game that might be relevant (e.g. metal worker), and there's little content that could fill 10 levels of a skill for it. It just seems unnecessary right now.

It'll be enough of a challenge to find the keys (or hot wire the car), get lots of gas, dodge zombies (when a proper damage model is in place), clear roads, and fill your vehicle with booty before heading to Sir Twiggies and waiting for this all to blow over, surely?

 

Is using the game's main protagonist effectively enough that you find it challenging to work around really not crafty?

 
 

 

I agree with this entirely. The first two paragraphs definitely point out the flaws of my last message. As for paragraph 4, that's part of what I've come to enjoy Zomboid for (how long everything can take, watching your character grow in skill as a reward for simply surviving a long time), though you are certainly right that there are is not enough incentive to reach level 10 on most skills, due to the fact that content and mechanics still needs to be filled in to make use of those higher levels in some areas. I agree with paragraph 5 too. Honestly, I'm very excited to finally play a game with permadeath, and an in-depth health system like Zomboid's where crashing can be just as risky and damaging as in real life. On top of your basic broken bones, lodged glass, etc., I'd like to see something like permanent (or if that's too unforgiving, crippling for a good amount of time) back problems that put you in pain with higher carrying loads or other chronic physical issues for really bad crashes. 

 

So, I'd like to ask you a question. Do you think it would be reasonable for cars to share the radius of attraction of chopping down trees? In case you never paid attention to it, it's nearly a full screen at the farthest zoom. This way we won't have to deal with zombies migrating from blocks away, but it can still be a decent radius of attraction. Or, do you think that's too small. I know you've proposed other solutions here, but I'm just wondering what would be a reasonable base radius for you, without taking other variables into account (RPM, engine type, condition, etc.)

Edited by BayCon
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