KickStarter Dead State: Reanimated

[Saduj]

There are some groups that are portrayed in such a way that you could argue that letting them live is the wrong thing to do. They also tend to be some of the better combat encounters.

But yeah, in most cases you could argue that you're slaughtering people who are just trying to get by the same way you are. Bothered me less and less as the game went on.

 

[34scell]

I always wondered if DS could be better handled by using third person narrative with abstract language for games such as this.

For example:
first person narrative - "Hey i am talking to you punk ! Where is my godamn food you promised !"
vs
XXX is angry at you. She is demanding food you promised.

Both of those are 2nd person

 

[Perkel]

I always wondered if DS could be better handled by using third person narrative with abstract language for games such as this.

For example:
first person narrative - "Hey i am talking to you punk ! Where is my godamn food you promised !"
vs
XXX is angry at you. She is demanding food you promised.

Both of those are 2nd person

Wasn't talking about grammatical structures but design of dialogue.

first person narrative being proper writting with dialogs which can take different forms and so on and third person being abstract form of first which can be created via mathematics where everything is described and player imagination fills up rest based on ques and behavior of different characters.

 

[Gozma]

I'm purposely going to make the combat content duller for myself since I'm playing a person with a conscience; that is, I'm going to do my best to avoid other groups of hostile people even if that means leaving loot behind, since they're just trying to survive, same as me.

There's a class of NPCs that are in situations where they're clearly holed up somewhere and there are warnings spraypainted on walls telling everyone to stay away. They also generally shout warnings in the text box. If you approach them anyway combat starts without you explicitly triggering it. If you kill them the non-sociopaths in your group take a happiness hit and probably dislike you more.

I think you can secretly go kill those people solo or with amoral/psycho followers for no penalty, but I haven't bothered because there's seemingly far more loot than you ever need, even on hardcore mode, but maybe you run out if you don't get bored and quit by day ~30. You can also probably do things like throw a noisemaker in their house and let zombies kill them without the game knowing how to track that it happened. I haven't checked because you don't need the loot and it would take 20 minutes of me passing my turn while zombies go to work.

Most of the time you get less humanely-treated human enemies that just attack you on sight. You can generally only avoid those if you spotted them with their backs turned, 'cause I think otherwise the game runs on reciprocal vision range.

 

[Jimmious]

While this is indeed great to have those, it is sad that we have come to praise a game that have loot logically placed. This means that it almost never happen...

State of Decay had its loot placed properly , that game and Dead State are both very similar and great zombie games just one of them is TB and another is GTA type sandbox , other than that they are kinda the same ;D

In my opinion loot in State of Decay was not as well placed as in Dead State. Especially bullets, bullets were everywhere.

 

[Gozma]

I've realized this was basically built like an Elder Scrolls game. Every area was built first and foremost as a diorama to walk through and look at and touch containers in, and gameplay was mostly handled by shotgunning enemies randomly onto the map after it was made.

Unfortunately turnbased combat is much, much worse at being undesigned filler content than even TES-grade crap FP shootermelee. There are a tiny number of maps that are designed to put all of the game's features in a good light (e.g. a small residential neighborhood where a group of armed thugs ambushes you from behind, triggering a three way fight when all the zombies get involved due to gun noise) and it works pretty well and a few of those strung together could have made a much shorter but gameplay-driven game.

 

[Morkar Left]

I've realized this was basically built like an Elder Scrolls game. Every area was built first and foremost as a diorama to walk through and look at and touch containers in, and gameplay was mostly handled by shotgunning enemies randomly onto the map after it was made.

Unfortunately turnbased combat is much, much worse at being undesigned filler content than even TES-grade crap FP shootermelee. There are a tiny number of maps that are designed to put all of the game's features in a good light (e.g. a small residential neighborhood where a group of armed thugs ambushes you from behind, triggering a three way fight when all the zombies get involved due to gun noise) and it works pretty well and a few of those strung together could have made a much shorter but gameplay-driven game.

While I appreciate diversity in gameplay I'm strongly against an "something awesome and exciting in every map" approach in such games or rpgs in general. You need standard situations / filler fights to
a) let the player learn the default pattern how to handle general gameplay
b) make the special encounters more standout
c) trick the player into thinking he's on a normal routine trip

 

[Gozma]

I agree in principle but the filler in Dead State is using one of two anti-zombie tactics you figure out the first two times you fight zombies ten thousand times in a row.

 

[Jimmious]

Well I for example utilize firecrackers and stuff like that and avoid a lot of zombie battles. The real fights are with other humans, zombies are there to add an extra tension factor only.
I do like the moments that we are swarmed while fighting other looters though

 

[Gozma]

You know what experiment I wish they'd have tried? Making zombies re-reanimate a couple turns after being killed, with no way at all to "final death" them. You'd obviously have to tweak a ton of other things to balance that and make it playable so it's not possible at this point, but it would make it impossible to methodically clear them out - which unfortunately is always the tactically correct way to deal with them in the game as-is.

 

[Jimmious]

Really? I never do that to be honest. I only kill the ones I have to in order to get to the loot. For example if there are a lot of them on a street I need to pass, I drop one these dynamite/firecracker things somewhere a bit away and they all gather there....I stroll around and loot and carefully kill any ones that remain close to loot and go about my business. Actually the only times I "clear" maps from zombies are when I get in gunfights with looters/Coyotes etc.. Otherwise I use melee weapons.

 

[Gozma]

Dead zombies don't come up behind you if a looter shoots a .38, they drop stuff, they don't waste time passing their turn when you are in combat mode on the other end of the map, they don't move to the sound of you bashing a lock, don't cost a noisemaker, etc. There's no tactical reason not to kill them. The maps with high-level enemies you'd want to bother throwing a huge wall of zombies at with noisemakers are generally zombie-free, too, as far as I've seen.

You can kill about 75% of zombies with a melee monster character by getting 4 tiles away from them from behind, going into combat mode, then running in and 1- or 2-shotting them with a baseball bat or something better. Combat mode should then automatically end without any zombies getting a turn.

 

[Jimmious]

There are a lot of tactical reasons to not kill them:
- No chances of getting a character infected (most important)
- Less ammo consumed (in case of swarming where guns must be used)
- Their loot is 99% worthless compared to what you can fill your chars with from the area around

Btw one shotting with baseball bat is not possible in Hardcore mode at least. With fire axe or sledgehammer yeah.

 

[tuluse]

You know what experiment I wish they'd have tried? Making zombies re-reanimate a couple turns after being killed, with no way at all to "final death" them. You'd obviously have to tweak a ton of other things to balance that and make it playable so it's not possible at this point, but it would make it impossible to methodically clear them out - which unfortunately is always the tactically correct way to deal with them in the game as-is.

Sounds interesting, but wouldn't this just add to the tedium really?

 

[Gozma]

There are a lot of tactical reasons to not kill them:
- No chances of getting a character infected (most important)
- Less ammo consumed (in case of swarming where guns must be used)

You don't understand man. There is no risk, no getting hit, no shooting, no swarming. You can kill zombies as deterministically as 1+1. The chances are 100%. You can even kite them from melee forever by moving away 7 tiles. This is on hardcore, pc infection on, all that. They are completely defenseless, they will never get a swing on you. It uses melee weapons that cause almost no noise. The "hit them in the back" thing I described is not the one way to fight them, it's the way to fight them without triggering a combat turn for dozens of other zombies. You can obviously just pull one at a time, let them waste their turn moving adjacent to you, wait through other zombies passing their turn, then bop them with the whole team and a Go! order if you need it.

Sounds interesting, but wouldn't this just add to the tedium really?

I think it would have to come with other mechanics too. Some kind of stealth or something? Locking zombies in closets? Plus a lot lower zombie density. Eh.

 

[Jimmious]

There are a lot of tactical reasons to not kill them:
- No chances of getting a character infected (most important)
- Less ammo consumed (in case of swarming where guns must be used)

You don't understand man. There is no risk, no getting hit, no shooting, no swarming. You can kill zombies as deterministically as 1+1. The chances are 100%. You can even kite them from melee forever by moving away 7 tiles. This is on hardcore, pc infection on, all that. They are completely defenseless, they will never get a swing on you. It uses melee weapons that cause almost no noise. The "hit them in the back" thing I described is not the one way to fight them, it's the way to fight them without triggering a combat turn for dozens of other zombies. You can obviously just pull one at a time, let them waste their turn moving adjacent to you, wait through other zombies passing their turn, then bop them with the whole team and a Go! order if you need it.

No I get ya. I do that too. I just don't get why you'd want to do that necessarily on ALL zombies in the map.

 

[Zombra]

Obviously clear-cutting is the most effective way to deal with zombies, but it's not the most efficient unless your time is an infinite resource.

 

[Jimmious]

Obviously clear-cutting is the most effective way to deal with zombies, but it's not the most efficient unless your time is an infinite resource.

I can't brofist but if someone would do it for me , it would be greatly appreciated

 

[Gozma]

Bye bye goalposts

 

[Infinitron]

I think what Gozma is trying to say is that making zombies regenerate would make it clear to the Typical RPG Monty Haul Player that they're more of an environmental hazard than an enemy to be eliminated.

The rule is:
"If I can do something a finite number of times - I must always do it."

"If I can do something infinite times - I will do it only when I really need to or when I feel like it."

That goes for everything from enemies to loot to character abilities.

 

[Gozma]

I'd add that it's legit bad design to make something boring or irritating a tactically correct decision, not just that there's some fault with the player for doing it and there should be a trail of breadcrumbs away from it. When I abstain from the correct choice because it entails too much boredom I am doing something like patching the game. This is especially bad with TB, which gets its pleasure near-exclusively from making tactically correct decisions.

 

[Morkar Left]

I think what Gozma is trying to say is that making zombies regenerate would make it clear to the Typical RPG Monty Haul Player that they're more of an environmental hazard than an enemy to be eliminated.

The rule is:
"If I can do something a finite number of times - I must always do it."

"If I can do something infinite times - I will do it only when I really need to or when I feel like it."

That goes for everything from enemies to loot to character abilities.

I wouldn't mind - or appreciate it - if there would be a minor random chance that zombies spawn from the entry points of the map and roam through the map independent of the noise level.

 

[Absurd]

This is a great game but having to wait for every single zombie's turn, even the ones that arent anywhere close to the fight, is really killing me. I get nightmares thinking about going to a giant map.

 

[Jaesun]

Turn up the speed of the game then.

 

[Curious_Tongue]

That goes for everything from enemies to loot to character abilities.

Are you saying that infinite upgrades to character abilities discourages the player from trying to collect as many as possible?