Post Demo Thoughts... and Ideas

[The Seraph of Tomorrow]

1. Difficult Scaling
2. Scavenging
3. Hordes
4. Building Placement

Difficulty Scaling

I highly suggest that avoiding difficulty scaling based on days survived. After all, it forces the player to discover the "meta" strategy to survival since they are forced to play at the games pace rather than their own pace.

While I get it, it's easier to implement. Though it isn't better.

An alternative would be basing the difficulty on a trio of factors such as:
- Major (1) How many infected you have killed / Nests cleared
- Moderate (2) Research Projects Completed / Tier of Research the player has reached
- Minor (3) Building Cleared / Days

Given most buildings have no supplies, it becomes a "let me google how to win" way of learning to play the game which sucks the fun out of any game.

Scavenging

If you are going to have it so most building are empty or mostly void of anything useful. You need to make it so the player can destroy buildings easily into a brick or metal pile that is salvageable. Buildings are an active detriment to defense if your HQ isn't a building in the middle of a clearing.

Otherwise you end up in a situation where savaging anything other than buildings with a clear icon (Non-(?) buildings) is a waste of time as well as an active detriment to your ability to play. As the way this kind of game works, is you die slowly with little to no ability to recover which isn't fun.

Hordes

I can honestly say, the get attacked every night aspect of the game is just bad design if the game intends to be event / story focused.

What would be better is if most (Say 1 in 5 or 4) buildings had infected in them which came out at night and attacked your squads if they are spotted outside. So you could risk night scavenging instead of having to keep squads back to defend every night. Also it would make it actually feel like the night belonged to the monsters, since like (Dying Light) the night was dangerous, and the day was more or less yours.

Or you could build a tower to attract the creatures at night when you activate it, to lure out the creatures and clear a zone instead of risk walking into a lair. Thus scouting (Finding what building hordes returned to during the day) would be a valid thing to do. As well as making hiding a possibility, since early on there would be tons of the creatures roaming at night.

If you really want to stick with the wave based element though, then I would suggest tying it to some kind of event or story aspect. Like if the player is searching buildings and they get an event that the building they searched is a dormant nest, and thus at night will follow their sent back to HQ.

Thus the player will know to prepare to defend, and it is meaningful instead of a consistent resource drain.

Building Placement

There are instances where a building is so close together, that when a unit exits the building they become trapped between walls.

It would also be a good idea if building corners snapped with building walls if there isn't going to be a way to level buildings, because there are times where an unseen gap would allow hordes to go around a wall.

As one user below suggested, a mod tool to build custom maps / scenarios and gear (weapons / armor) would also be interesting and expand the life of the game.

P.S.

Games which can be looked at to inspire features or get ideas of how to better implement existing features might be...

- Dying Light (Day / Night Mechanics)
- Days Gone (Lair Mechanics)
- Prototype (Mutations, Factions, and Enemies)
- Rebuild 3 (Base Building and Event Mechanics)
- Cepheus Protocol (Base Building)
- War of the Zombie (Exploration / Squad Management)
- Survivalist: Invisible Strain (Mutations and Enemies)
- (I'll post more if I can think of any)...

[The Seraph of Tomorrow]

Also. in every building it would be nice if there was at least 1 resource.

So it didn't feel like savaging is just a complete waste of time.

[kammrun1]

Playing the demo, I’ve played all the maps and I have some suggestions please allow for the gaming community to be able to mod the game and you could even split the work load with us the gamers by allowing us to submit changes and our base if you make two game modes 1=single player 2=MMO where you start a server and as people claim sections of the world they become locked on that server, they are able to play with each other like Conflict of Nations World War, Minecraft, World of Warcraft, and like PUBG. Conflict of nations World war is a great example of how this could work with live MMO playing and players and the computer plays any player that is not active for a week. However, once the player logs back on they can pick up where they left off. The server with continue to play until all players are dead or are inactive for over a week. All players of that server can get an email notifying they of the server closing or resetting due to inactivity or if there are less than 5 players left on the server, they can vote to end the game/reset the server and open it up back to everyone else to fill the server again with new players. Check out Conflict of Nations for example = https://www.conflictnations.com. If we can’t build boats/ships then you can make the servers divided into regions or countries. Like each server could have 10000 players or 1000 and they will all be in whatever region of play like north America of Europe. And players can interact with each other in real time. Maybe you could even make it where we could capture zombies and put them into a truck and drive them to a rival base and unleash them on our enemies in both modes single player and online multiplayer. We would need big tractor trailer trucks and some kind of bait for the zombies like if we have truck containers and we have both ends open and we have a horde chase us in one side and we escape the other side and close both sides/doors remotely by clicking on the container or it could be an animation that is activated once we run the zombies into the container. There is so much potential for this game please don’t limit yourself and if you open it up for use the gamers to mob and make changes or suggestions we could help build something even more amazing then your already spectacular game. Of course, all mods and suggestions would come to you for your approval to be added to the base game otherwise unapproved mods would only be able to be used in single play and the approved mods could be added to the base game in updates from the developers. We could also help with saving data as we play single player. The base game map could be updated to make it look like there are other people in the world when there is an update. Player bases could be saved in areas and as other players start new single player games they could come across these. After playing the demo I have some more suggestions we should be able to have way way more squads like I don’t think there should be a limit like in real life and we should be able to break the squads up into individuals as when playing I came across 2 cars next to each other and I had to drive one to base and come back for the other whereas if I had the option to break my squad down I could have got both cars faster and if not individuals then maybe break into half squad of 2 people so its still a team. This would also help in clearing much more area and buildings searches. We should have the ability to select which guns to give to our squad members. Like it I want a squad of 2 people and they have a sniper rifle and a AR I should be able to swap there weapons when they are at base or when there is a different weapon around my squad. Also building should have at least 2 ways in, 1 front 1 back and we should be able to garrison the roof of a build like with my sniper team to be able to shoot the infected from an elevated tall build with really long line of sight. Also, its hard selecting while in pause, its takes multiple clicks to select building and units. Train tracks should be a source of wood and metal. In Dijon France map there are rain road tracks to the east of the start building and they cannot be scavenged.

[BladeWiz]

Originally posted by kammrun1:

Playing the demo, I’ve played all the maps and I have some suggestions please allow for the gaming community to be able to mod the game and you could even split the work load with us the gamers by allowing us to submit changes and our base if you make two game modes 1=single player 2=MMO where you start a server and as people claim sections of the world they become locked on that server, they are able to play with each other like Conflict of Nations World War, Minecraft, World of Warcraft, and like PUBG. Conflict of nations World war is a great example of how this could work with live MMO playing and players and the computer plays any player that is not active for a week. However, once the player logs back on they can pick up where they left off. The server with continue to play until all players are dead or are inactive for over a week. All players of that server can get an email notifying they of the server closing or resetting due to inactivity or if there are less than 5 players left on the server, they can vote to end the game/reset the server and open it up back to everyone else to fill the server again with new players. Check out Conflict of Nations for example = https://www.conflictnations.com. If we can’t build boats/ships then you can make the servers divided into regions or countries. Like each server could have 10000 players or 1000 and they will all be in whatever region of play like north America of Europe.

I don't think a indie dev should make there game turn into a mmo. also 3 server for about 1000 players for the beginning and drop to 200 in six month based on other mmo is not worth the time to change his game to.
although if he does allow the use of mod support, maybe someone will do it like Rimworld. Where it have 2 or more player with different bases and they have to loot and find a way to use the radio about nest and item. When one goal to isolate and survive on a large area given by the host.

[The Seraph of Tomorrow]

Originally posted by BladeWiz:

I don't think a indie dev should make there game turn into a mmo. also 3 server for about 1000 players for the beginning and drop to 200 in six month based on other mmo is not worth the time to change his game to.
although if he does allow the use of mod support, maybe someone will do it like Rimworld. Where it have 2 or more player with different bases and they have to loot and find a way to use the radio about nest and item. When one goal to isolate and survive on a large area given by the host.

I certainly disagree with the MMO aspect suggested by the other user.

Though mod support aspect would certainly be a plus. As I'd be quick to jump into a map maker to build interesting maps, add new weapons, and build fun scenarios for players to dabble with.

[mikeydsc]

I listed Survivalist and a game called Rebuild 3- Gangs of Deadsville

[The Seraph of Tomorrow]

Originally posted by mikeydsc:

I listed Survivalist and a game called Rebuild 3- Gangs of Deadsville

The rebuild series was pretty good, I'm surprised I forgot about it.

[Drake]

Instead of doing my own thing, ill join into the 'post action report'.

Enemy attack, lore and difficulty:

As previously mentioned, having groups just spawn and run at your base... not so good. Maybe do a 'house spawn' and let them room at night. When the time in the level increases, so does the atraction of the base (through smel, noise, trails, etc.), luring near rooming groups to it. By having scavangers either lure the hordes away, or smoke them out or their lairs, you increase the 'save zone' around your base.


Building buildings and taking care of those that are already there:

Yes, im aware that its hard to take down a building that isnt made of wood and bricks, but at least we should be able to fortify them. Allowing us to integrate them into makeshift walls.
Propos walls, i think we are in need of gates....


Controle:

Pls, for the l... you know what, just stop trying to do all over the mouse dangit! If i try to rotate a building, i get a dozens of the same kind at the same spot. If i want multiple, they rotate all over the place. O_o Just use some keys, we are not on a console with only a controler, you know?


But all in all, nice game. :)

[The Seraph of Tomorrow]

Originally posted by Drake:

Instead of doing my own thing, ill join into the 'post action report'.

Enemy attack, lore and difficulty:

As previously mentioned, having groups just spawn and run at your base... not so good. Maybe do a 'house spawn' and let them room at night. When the time in the level increases, so does the atraction of the base (through smel, noise, trails, etc.), luring near rooming groups to it. By having scavangers either lure the hordes away, or smoke them out or their lairs, you increase the 'save zone' around your base.

I believe a sort of lair mechanic instead of just the creatures being in some of the houses during the day would be a good way to handle this.

If you have ever played "Days Gone" I believe the game does this fairly well with its nests.

Originally posted by Drake:

Building buildings and taking care of those that are already there:

Yes, im aware that its hard to take down a building that isnt made of wood and bricks, but at least we should be able to fortify them. Allowing us to integrate them into makeshift walls.
Propos walls, i think we are in need of gates....

I suppose I didn't think about that, while there should be a way to take down wood and brick buildings. Turing other types of building into makeshift watchtowers, walls, or fortified locations would be really useful for non-destructible buildings.

Originally posted by Drake:

Controls:

Pls, for the l... you know what, just stop trying to do all over the mouse dang it. If i try to rotate a building, i get a dozens of the same kind at the same spot. If i want multiple, they rotate all over the place. O_o Just use some keys, we are not on a console with only a controler, you know?


But all in all, nice game. :)

Maybe using Q and E to rotate a building, and using mouse to select (build) on a viable spot would be much better.

I can't say I am fond of the select and drag aspect either except with walls.

[Drake]

I believe a sort of lair mechanic instead of just the creatures being in some of the houses during the day would be a good way to handle this.

If you have ever played "Days Gone" I believe the game does this fairly well with its nests.

Oh, i like that. We can expand on that even more. Even doing some (minor)lore building on the nests.

When creating the map, hordes are placed in the buildings and they room around those, till attracted to something. With that we have the map 'filled'

Then there are those houses that are like our HQ, connected to underground bases that have fallen to the infected. They will iregularly spawn new hordes who will room around thoses bases. Again, till attracted by something. Till then, they will fill out the suroundings, making them harder and harder to 'smoke out'.

Giving it a kinda like sub goal of clearing the nests to stop the spawning and also giving access to a ton of resources (since it was a former undergound shelter, lore wise, it would make sense).

Ofc, if the nest isnt taken care of, at some point, there should be something like a 'dungeon break' having the whole group acting as one, rushing the player base. *hrhrh*

Also, i dont know how much ressources and time the dev (devs?) have to invest in something like that. :-/