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[Suomiboi]

 

I'm not slandering something because I don't agree with it, and it has everything to do with the standard "I like playing hardcore, if you don't you're weak" mentality that has crept into most games that already DO have multiple difficulty settings.

 

And I do know what is best for myself, though I can't speak for others.

A game to enjoy, that's why we're all playing them.

 

I disagree that it's weak to not play hardcore. But I do think it is weak to want to play hardcore, but still not do so, because you were given an option to play easier. I know, because I do it. And I explained a lot of the reasoning in my previous post.

 

Games that have an easy way out, ruin the whole game experience for me, because I tend to take it. Not because I want to, but because when it's presented as an easy option, it's a lot easier at the moment to take it than to enjoy the full difficulty.

[Ewok]

Games that have an easy way out, ruin the whole game experience for me, because I tend to take it. Not because I want to, but because when it's presented as an easy option, it's a lot easier at the moment to take it than to enjoy the full difficulty.

It's not just you mate, it's human nature. Sometimes the only way to make people do something the 'right' way is to give them no other option!

The previous posts about fast travelling in TES games and reloading in Kerbal Space Program made the point very well.

[EnigmaGrey]

In the business world anyone will tell you that the key to success is to appeal to as many customers as possible.

And this is the business world because they aren't giving the game away for free.

I suspect they'd also warn you about over-diversification and tell you there are advantages to exploiting a niche market, but my solitary business management course is long behind me.

Project Zomboid, with it's isometric camera, pixelated art, and its focus on survival/Brooks-Romero zombie lore pushes it into the category of games like NeoScavenger, or othter rogue likes with a similar art style (TOME), I suspect. Though sales have been good on both Desura and Steam, it's still far from the mainstream.

Moving towards that general category would then mean PZ would have to compete with a much larger market. If that was it's original goal, they've botched it.

I would even be up for when you die you start someplace else on the same world as a different survivor, that would at least allow you to get your stuff back.

That's already the current game.

There are possible negative effects, a save feature option would have none of them.

It would encourage poeple to purposefully break loot spawns by quick-loading saves; it would purposefully break "This is how you died" by making death very simple to cheat; it'd allow users to micro-manage their way out of situations that should have been "cinematic," .etc Worse, it'd canonize this as a legitimate way to play the game. (As it is right now, it seems to be more a taboo/cheat/work-around.)

Take a look at the original X-Com from 1993. It has a great save system, but if you take advantage of it, all of the above applies. Careful selection of personnel is no longer necessary (they're just fodder), using items in the game to booby-trap or ferret out aliens becomes meaningless (I already know where they are and can just reload if I get into trouble) .etc

As to why easy modes feel "cheap," it tends to be because the game is built around certain premises, such as deadly enemies, or scarcity of resources. Easy modes require the game to be rebalanced to account for this, but it usually just means "easy" is how the game is meant to be played: Hard mode is hard because loot and health is just scaled arbitrarily (as done in many Bethesda games).

[Rathlord]

In the business world anyone will tell you that the key to success is to appeal to as many customers as possible.

And this is the business world because they aren't giving the game away for free.

 

 

This is just completely and utterly wrong. There's a reason the Bugatti Veyron doesn't get good gas mileage or have super high safety ratings. There's a reason Windstar vans don't go 0-60 in 3 seconds or go 200 mph. The reason is because people market items to a target audience. Trying to be all things to all people- pandering- especially to people who don't know anything about the actual industry is bad business practice in every industry.

 

PZ also isn't around to make money. They're making the game because they're passionate about it. Money is important, and it's a concern, but it's not the central goal of the game. So even if sales were to decline because they're making the game they want to make (and their entire audience wants them to make [and I don't think your wild guesses qualify as actual evidence that they are]), they still wouldn't do it.

[Rathlord]

There are possible negative effects, a save feature option would have none of them.

I'm not slandering something because I don't agree with it, and it has everything to do with the standard "I like playing hardcore, if you don't you're weak" mentality that has crept into most games that already DO have multiple difficulty settings.

 

And I do know what is best for myself, though I can't speak for others.

A game to enjoy, that's why we're all playing them.

 

 

You're just making statements with no evidence. No one is claiming not wanting to play hardcore is weak, we're saying it's bad game design. I've been watching people making suggestions about PZ for the greater part of 3 years now, and I'm pretty confident when I say- gamers don't understand game design. In a huge proportion of cases, at least.

 

But let me spell it out like I've done so many times before.

 

Game now has autosave and you can savescum all you want.

 

You now loot every house and go to the most dangerous parts of the city, because why not there's nothing at all to be lost.

 

You now engage and fight every single zombie and horde you see, because why not there's nothing at all to be lost.

 

You come on the forums and complain because the game is too easy, there's no challenge, and you have an overabundance of supplies. Lots of other people do, too, because there's a save feature and they've never visited the forums and they never played the game before, so they have no idea that the game isn't even meant to be played without savescumming.

 

Now the developers have lots of angry people complaining about an imbalanced game because a very small minority of people ruined it for everyone. If they ignore the complaints, people put trashy reviews up on Steam and Desura complaining about how the game is too easy and they don't care. If they address the complaints and try to fix the difficulty, then they're taking time away from developing the game they want to make to fix the problems caused by pandering to a small minority who want PZ to be something it isn't. They're wasting their time and the time of their most loyal customers who are most likely to spread the word about the game and buy it for (or sell it to) friends.

 

There's a myriad of other reasons why savescumming is a terrible idea, but I've actually had the pleasure of watching this EXACT process happen in a game I love- Tales of Maj'Eyal. A softcore non-permadeath mode was implemented and their forums had a huge thread of people playing that game mode and bitching about how easy it was. Developer was in the exact same pickle I posted above. This isn't some fictitious thing I'm making up- real events happening to real people.

 

PZ isn't about savescumming and making it to "the end." I'm sorry if this isn't the game you want PZ to be- you've already been instructed on how to work around it, and I'm sure there'll be a mod for it out there some day. Devs have said a hard "no" to this ever happening and the community resoundingly agrees.

[Kirrus]

This is a confirmed 'No' from the devs guys. Not much point talking about it more, the confirmed 'No's are almost written-in-stone

 

Locking.