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Bites are counter-productive to the game's design.


PoshRocketeer

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I get it, you want to make lethal zombies that are a real threat, and you wants bites to be a real concern. But what we have now is honestly just not fun to deal with. Zombies are a threat already, if you get cornered or surrounded, it's effectively game over- and that's something you can influence significantly. 

 

Losing a maxed out character because you got fucked on an RNG dice roll is the most frustrating experience in the game, it's not fun, there's zero counterplay. It's just an "Oopsies guess you have to restart from scratch now! Have fun!" It's genuinely insulting to the player's intelligence and time.

 

There is absolutely nothing more infuriating than being forced to start over because the only injury you received in a 30-hour game is grounds for an instant restart. It's bad game design plain and simple.  Don't even @ me with the "just go find your body", because by that point power and water has been shut off, and you're using an unleveled character after the first respawn period.  Even if you manage to meander back to the area your body was in, your corpse has already shuffled off across the map and it's basically gone for good.

 

I'm not one to complain without offering solutions, and the bite mechanic desperately needs something

 

Right now you're relying solely on random chance that is absurdly low to survive, I've tried taking care of bites and keeping my character healthy, and it just doesn't matter.  I get that you don't want us to just shrug off bites, but ffs give us something, the antibody mod for version 40 is a wonderful example of fair and balanced bites, but it doesn't work with 41.50. 

 

Please give us wound care options to treat bites to at least give us a fighting chance. There's a reason there are mods to completely remove bites and mods like antibodies. 

Edited by PoshRocketeer
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In the sandbox options you can disable the bite zombification chance.. they take longer to heal after that. But maybe with this post you wanted to keep the zombification but have an official way to counter the "virus" with a medicine or some other method/resource.

 

Edited by 3lackrose
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31 minutes ago, 3lackrose said:

In the sandbox options you can disable the bite zombification chance.. they take longer to heal after that. But maybe with this post you wanted to keep the zombification but have an official way to counter the "virus" with a medicine or some other method/resource.

 

Yes, exactly. I love the idea of a "hardcore" zombie experience, and proper wound care/treatment for bites, but the implementation in game leaves a lot to be desired in the balance and sandbox department. (Sandbox referring to the playable sandbox not the mode.)

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58 minutes ago, Burger_Time said:

The game's design has been built around the idea of bites being a guaranteed death. Please don't drop phrases like "Bad game design" if you know about nothing about it. 

 

You can always turn it off in sandbox either way. 

But it is bad design. RNG dice-rolls determining an instant restart is always a bad thing, there is absolutely no context in which that isn't the case. 

 

Let me put it like this, next time you get injured in  any game, not just zomboid,  flip a coin. If it's heads, congrats, fix up the wound and move on (assuming you didn't get fucked by RNJesus), if it's tails, delete your save and start over from scratch.

 

That doesn't sound very fun, does it? Because it isn't. Sometimes if your vision is built around something, but that vision isn't fun, you need to go back to the drawing board. It's an inevitability of game design, something that I'm very passionate about, as well as having formal education in the subject.

 

The game is absolutely not built around bites, bites are a glaring oversight in balance where the devs have either not put much time into or don't realize is an issue. 

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3 minutes ago, PoshRocketeer said:

But it is bad design. RNG dice-rolls determining an instant restart is always a bad thing, there is absolutely no context in which that isn't the case. 

 

Let me put it like this, next time you get injured in  any game, not just zomboid,  flip a coin. If it's heads, congrats, fix up the wound and move on (assuming you didn't get fucked by RNJesus), if it's tails, delete your save and start over from scratch.

 

That doesn't sound very fun, does it? Because it isn't. Sometimes if your vision is built around something, but that vision isn't fun, you need to go back to the drawing board. It's an inevitability of game design, something that I'm very passionate about, as well as having formal education in the subject.

 

The game is absolutely not built around bites, bites are a glaring oversight in balance where the devs have either not put much time into or don't realize is an issue. 

Turn it off in sandbox then. 

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1 minute ago, Burger_Time said:

I'm good thanks 

I'd also like to add that if the devs were as closed-minded as you seem to be, this forum wouldn't even exist.  They've already conceded on core design choices in the past on numerous occasions, I see no reason why this would be any different. In the end it's their decision, not yours. Bites also aren't always 100% fatal, at least not according to the devs. I've never actually seen anyone survive a bite, but supposedly it's possible.

Edited by PoshRocketeer
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4 hours ago, PoshRocketeer said:

I'd also like to add that if the devs were as closed-minded as you seem to be, this forum wouldn't even exist.  They've already conceded on core design choices in the past on numerous occasions, I see no reason why this would be any different. In the end it's their decision, not yours. Bites also aren't always 100% fatal, at least not according to the devs. I've never actually seen anyone survive a bite, but supposedly it's possible.

Well it's not possible and never was.

It was made up to give you false hope that there was a chance. There was a bug which let you survive but it's always intended as 100%.

 

If there's anything unlikely to be conceded in, it's this. Sandbox is there for a reason, why people refuse to use it is beyond me.

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Not sure what's your problem dude. As many people have said prior this this post alone, the game was specifically designed to give you a total loss of hope once bitten.

 

You have the right to simply, open up the same save and continue playing minus the previous skills grind them back or cheat them. Or you could turn the infection off altogether. Whatever suits your play style go for that but they sure as hell won't be changing the bite values due to some guy dying from fighting far too many of them at a time.

Edited by Thorn Henry
False information regarding blood transmission
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Bites are a confirmed guaranteed death.

 

"Zero counterplay"? There is a counterplay. be careful in combat and don't get involved in unnecessary fights. It's possible to kill tons of zombies and not get injured, plenty of people can destroy tons of zombies and get away with no injuries.

 

If you get cornered and surrounded, I'm sorry to say but that's your fault for getting careless and not being cautious of your surroundings and the amount of zombies, it's very easy to walk away from fights[unless sprinters are enabled], even fast shamblers walk quite slow, not too hard to out-walk them.

 

Unless you die to a group of zombies attacking you at once, you can just remove all the important items from your character and stash them somewhere to pick-up later. It isn't that bad to have a character after the power and water is shut-off since if's probable that you already have a safe-house set up with supplies and the power and water shut-off isn't really that bad to begin with. Water is very easy to get your hands on.

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tl;dr: We like it. It's not going to change and we provide you the ability to change it yourself, if you care enough about it.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of bites being a guaranteed death, as I too have concerns that it limits gameplay somewhat. Though even if this were changed to something between what you suggest and 100% death, it'd only really be useful to people who were new to the game, who didn't know that it'd ultimately kill them. 99/100 people would just re-roll even if it were softened.

But, you do have to respect the game's setting and the fact that bites being lethal makes PZ very unique among zombie games. It feeds perfectly into the tagline of "This is how you died," adding further to the experience and enhancing the thrill of the game. PZ itself goes out of the way to discourage you from fighting zombies in close quarters, meaning your bites are really your own responsibility. We also provide sandbox options and modding if you really don't like it.

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20 hours ago, Thorn Henry said:

Not sure what's your problem dude. As many people have said prior this this post alone, the game was specifically designed to give you a total loss of hope once bitten.

 

You have the right to simply, open up the same save and continue playing minus the previous skills grind them back or cheat them. Or you could turn the infection off altogether. Whatever suits your play style go for that but they sure as hell won't be changing the bite values due to some guy dying from fighting far too many of them at a time.

Ah yes, the argument of champions: "GiT gUd"


Here, let's list all of the ways you can get bitten that don't involve "being careless", some of which you've probably experienced yourself unless you have .5
hours.

Shoves or attacks simply not registering, and going through the zombie's model.

Being bitten through a wall.

Being bitten through a closed window.

The roof-hiding not working properly, causing you to be unable to see enemies.

Zombies biting you while in a stumble animation.

Zombies biting you while you're behind them.

Zombies biting you while  they're stunned on the ground (yes, seriously.)

I'm sure there are more that I've yet to experience, as well. 

 

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20 hours ago, EnigmaGrey said:

tl;dr: We like it. It's not going to change and we provide you the ability to change it yourself, if you care enough about it.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of bites being a guaranteed death, as I too have concerns that it limits gameplay somewhat. Though even if this were changed to something between what you suggest and 100% death, it'd only really be useful to people who were new to the game, who didn't know that it'd ultimately kill them. 99/100 people would just re-roll even if it were softened.

But, you do have to respect the game's setting and the fact that bites being lethal makes PZ very unique among zombie games. It feeds perfectly into the tagline of "This is how you died," adding further to the experience and enhancing the thrill of the game. PZ itself goes out of the way to discourage you from fighting zombies in close quarters, meaning your bites are really your own responsibility. We also provide sandbox options and modding if you really don't like it.

I can respect that you at the very least provided something other than 'git gud", but I have to disagree with you on a lot.

 

TL:DR, I respectfully disagree with your decision and approach to blending game design and setting, and think that the current implementation is harmful to both.

 

1: A game's story directly hindering gameplay doesn't make a game unique, it just holds it back. it's also not a unique mechanic to PZ, NMRiH is an example of a game with lethal bites, but the difference is that it's not a long-term survival/RPG- it's a round-based objective game with respawns on 2/4 of the available difficulties.

To further iterate, I get that you guys love romero zombies, most people do. The main difference is that romero zombies are in movies, not video games. Video games are an interactive medium, and the mechanics are just as important if not more important than story in most scenarios, and in a game so heavily mechanic-based such as PZ, I see it as no exception.

2: "Just mod it out bro" or "just disable it" isn't applicable, not everyone can program, and disabling it isn't what I suggested, or what I want. Furthermore, and most importantly, mods should not be included in discussion of core game balance.

3: PZ does not discourage you from fighting zombies, it discourages you from reckless play. If it's intended to discourage you from fighting zombies then you might want to look at that.

You don't give us the option to change it, just to disable it. 

 

Inb4: hes A dEveLoPeR sTfU gIt GuD XDDDDDDDDD

Yeah I know, I can still disagree with devs. I don't have to like every decision they make

 

Edited by PoshRocketeer
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On 5/18/2021 at 10:39 PM, PoshRocketeer said:

But it is bad design. RNG dice-rolls determining an instant restart is always a bad thing, there is absolutely no context in which that isn't the case. 

Might help to reframe it the way the Romero setting would posit it: RNG doesn't deliver an instant restart. Rather, it SAVES you from instant restart more often than not. If you got wounded by a zed then you've already failed your counterplay. The bite isn't the the cause of your failure; rather the failure to scope out the area in advance, to maximize your run speed, to get going while the going was good, etc is what brings you down.

 

It's not a combat game really so if things come to blows, you've kinda already lost. But every now and then, an attack on you ISN'T a bite, and that's when you praise RNGeezus.

Edited by trombonaught
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On 5/18/2021 at 10:17 PM, PoshRocketeer said:

Please give us wound care options to treat bites to at least give us a fighting chance.

Your fighting chance is before the injury.  If you get there, you already failed it. 

 

Is it "painful" to get your 100h+ character bitten?  Yes.  Does it feel devastating?  Yes.  Does it make me ragequit the game for 3 month, also yes.  But this is also what makes me come back. Surviving in this game is an actual achievement.

Edited by Mastermindx
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I'd love to have a setting option to determine how infectious bites are in the run you're playing / server you're running, rather than infection just being off or on - and an option that works as this post suggests, a setting for increased chances of the wound not getting infected if you're properly taking care of it.

 

Honestly, I'd love to see an option for amputation, too. If I get bit on the hand, let me attempt to amputate it and deal with the panic, the pain, the blood loss, the cauterization and the high infection rate as well as primary/secondary slot issues. Could also add more importance to having doctors around in multiplayer if they could accomplish proper amputations with enough medical skill... as long as they got to you in time.

 

Your suggestion isn't a bad one, it was just delivered in a rather tactless and abrasive manner.

Edited by Nisora
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13 hours ago, Nisora said:

I'd love to have a setting option to determine how infectious bites are in the run you're playing / server you're running, rather than infection just being off or on - and an option that works as this post suggests, a setting for increased chances of the wound not getting infected if you're properly taking care of it.

 

Honestly, I'd love to see an option for amputation, too. If I get bit on the hand, let me attempt to amputate it and deal with the panic, the pain, the blood loss, the cauterization and the high infection rate as well as primary/secondary slot issues. Could also add more importance to having doctors around in multiplayer if they could accomplish proper amputations with enough medical skill... as long as they got to you in time.

 

Your suggestion isn't a bad one, it was just delivered in a rather tactless and abrasive manner.

 

There are mods to set up mortality chance per damage type.

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