Just a Suggestion

[The.Almighty.Sear]

I'm not sure how difficult something like this is to implement, so just hear out what I have to say and take it with a grain of salt. After reading through a bit of what people have to say about the game and trying it out for a few hours myself, I think there's an easier solution to all of this that a lot of people just aren't seeing.

Some want the experience to be easier, some more "realistic", some like it as is, and others want things harder. What this tells me, personally, is overall most people seem to really like / enjoy the game for what it is, but have varying opinions on game balance being too this way or that. It tells me the core of the game is solid and the experience is something most of the players so far very much enjoy.

So my suggestion would be this; create a means for tweaking settings / values at the start of a run for players to tailor their desired survival experience to and have these settings / values start out at what the development team's "desired experience" or "target experience" is. Could even suggest including a little blurb that pop ups explaining "these are default settings and how the game is meant to be experienced" to preserve the developer's vision while still making those who love the game so far but really get hung up on X, Y, or Z being too harsh or too lenient have their user / player experience vastly improve.

Games like Project Zombid (which I get are a different... Style? Genre? Well, lets just settle on "different") have been so radically successful specifically because these games incorporate a sandbox collection of tweak-able settings and options for their players to choose from. This could allow players who think the weapons are too fragile, or who think sleep and hunger requirements aren't strict enough, ect, ect, to personally tailor and set these values to what works best for them.

Realistically, tweaking things to be harsher or easier is just going to aggravate one side of the isle when it comes to the survival genre player base no matter what–but allowing them to tweak it for themselves either up or down and to experiment with it to find what works best for them is a way to legitimately allow most to be happy with what the game has to offer. I think it'd also benefit the developers and encourage more positive reviews on Steam since players can be pretty finicky and let small concerns like these completely tank their reviews.

TLDR; A custom settings menu with configurable sliders / editable values brought up at the beginning of each new run could;

– Resolve a lot of the current complaints.
– Potentially prevent negative reviews / convert them into positive ones.
– Preserve the developer's vision with a "default" option without alienating either side or requiring too much in depth alteration to the existing game.

[Ordisoftware]

The difficulty selection is planned according to the roadmap unveiled a few days ago.

It could follow the classic model : History (almost invincible), Easy, Normal, Hard (let's say that's the current level unless we consider it Normal), Extreme, Nightmare.

Or, as you seem to be suggesting, even go further by allowing, in addition to presets, as some games sometimes do, the customization of each individual setting: weapon durability and power, frequency of material resources, weapons and food, zombie strength and sensitivity to noise, progression of hunger, sleep, mental state, vitality and resistance to injury, etc.

[The.Almighty.Sear]

Originally posted by Ordisoftware:

The difficulty selection is planned according to the roadmap unveiled a few days ago.

It could follow the classic model : History (almost invincible), Easy, Normal, Hard (let's say that's the current level unless we consider it Normal), Extreme, Nightmare.

Or, as you seem to be suggesting, even go further by allowing, in addition to presets, as some games sometimes do, the customization of each individual setting: weapon durability and power, frequency of material resources, weapons and food, zombie strength and sensitivity to noise, progression of hunger, sleep, mental state, vitality and resistance to injury, etc.

Sounds great, actually. I hadn't seen the roadmap, so this is great to hear. I mostly made this post because I saw a lot of these things being nit picked pretty heavily in the forums here. Just was my gut instinct / initial thought on how it could be addressed. Felt the need to share. Still, it's good to hear it's already something they're considering. I saw someone else mention the developers going back and forth on whether to adjust how weapons work right now, for example, and my initial reaction to that thought was it would anger a lot of people either way. Was what spurred on this suggestion.

[Fakeounet]

This sounds great, I think it would please everyone, and adding a way to save for example, so that people that don't want to replay the beginning after dying because of boredom can load a previous save. It would also allow players that like it like this to play whithout saves on !

[fourfourtwo79]

I'd encourage to be cautious. Unless it's easy to implement, maybe. Firstly English speaking reviews sit at a 91% positive ratio, if you filter the reviews. For some reason it seems mainly Chinese et all who are having major problems. Localization, maybe?

Secondly, if you aim to please everyone, you risk making a worse experience for anyone. That's why so many games are this bland, in particular in the space where games cost millions. If you really want an experience of survival, risk and reward decision making and tense moments -- there are inevitably people who are gonna be badly rubbed by it. Not everyone likes From Software games too -- or Telltale, for that matter. They're all very specific in what they're trying to achieve in their own ways. And that's ok.

One of the more extreme and disheartening stories more recent came from Arkane's Deathloop, which even dropped the entire original vision due to an overreaction to player feedback. No wonder that the game is perceived as being as repetetive now by quite a few -- because mindless repetition is now what Deathloop literally is. The time loop puzzle at the very heart of things got axed and you're now just mindlessly following dots, shooting people in the face over and over in between. And so the real loop in Deathloop is a tutorial mode you cannot ever escape.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uzhjl8xh_M

[Jon]

Being able to save the game would be great. I've got a corrupt saved game and looking at my steam saves "https://store.steampowered.com/account/remotestorage" well the game only has 1 save file. So yeah - I get the hardcore nature etc but why not just make a hardcore mode and let us newbs have multiple saves ?!?

[Fakeounet]

Originally posted by fourfourtwo79:

I'd encourage to be cautious. Unless it's easy to implement, maybe. Firstly English speaking reviews sit at a 91% positive ratio, if you filter the reviews. For some reason it seems mainly Chinese et all who are having major problems. Localization, maybe?

Secondly, if you aim to please everyone, you risk making a worse experience for anyone. That's why so many games are this bland, in particular in the space where games cost millions. If you really want an experience of survival, risk and reward decision making and tense moments -- there are inevitably people who are gonna be badly rubbed by it. Not everyone likes From Software games too -- or Telltale, for that matter. They're all very specific in what they're trying to achieve in their own ways. And that's ok.

One of the more extreme and disheartening stories more recent came from Arkane's Deathloop, which even dropped the entire original vision due to an overreaction to player feedback. No wonder that the game is perceived as being as repetetive now by quite a few -- because mindless repetition is now what Deathloop literally is. The time loop puzzle at the very heart of things got axed and you're now just mindlessly following dots, shooting people in the face over and over in between. And so the real loop in Deathloop is a tutorial mode you cannot ever escape.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uzhjl8xh_M

You are not wrong, but I was thinking of changes that don't change the whole game, an easy mode for example with more loot/ less damages/ saves possibility would allow players that find it too difficult or punishing to have a better time without destroying the game ! For example I really like the game rn, even with the durability that so many people complain about, it forces to think about how to tackle the problems, which may not be perfect yet but very nice in my opinion. Losing a character is a yes for me, but losing a game without possibility of launching a save ? It can be annoying after several tries to go through the same locations over and over again. Maybe including rng in the locations could resolve this ?

[The.Almighty.Sear]

Originally posted by fourfourtwo79:

I'd encourage to be cautious. Unless it's easy to implement, maybe. Firstly English speaking reviews sit at a 91% positive ratio, if you filter the reviews. For some reason it seems mainly Chinese et all who are having major problems. Localization, maybe?

Secondly, if you aim to please everyone, you risk making a worse experience for anyone. That's why so many games are this bland, in particular in the space where games cost millions. If you really want an experience of survival, risk and reward decision making and tense moments -- there are inevitably people who are gonna be badly rubbed by it. Not everyone likes From Software games too -- or Telltale, for that matter. They're all very specific in what they're trying to achieve in their own ways. And that's ok.

One of the more extreme and disheartening stories more recent came from Arkane's Deathloop, which even dropped the entire original vision due to an overreaction to player feedback. No wonder that the game is perceived as being as repetetive now by quite a few -- because mindless repetition is now what Deathloop literally is. The time loop puzzle at the very heart of things got axed and you're now just mindlessly following dots, shooting people in the face over and over in between. And so the real loop in Deathloop is a tutorial mode you cannot ever escape.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uzhjl8xh_M

I agree with the intention behind what you're saying, which is why I said I think developers doing a flat out increase in ease or difficulty would be a wrong move. Because you're right, overreacting to one group's feedback can cause a lot of backlash or cause the adjustments made to ruin the game in a way that might not have been foreseen at the time.

But adding a means of setting your own values and integers for the game from the very beginning of each run–while also clearly indicating the default settings are the intended experience–doesn't suffer from this down side. It's placing the ability to control the experience in the user-base's hands and allowing them to adjust it for themselves without taking away or changing anything from the game itself.

Were someone to cause a repeating death spiral or unintended issue in a playthrough, it'd entirely be the player's own fault for setting the values too low or too high, and the player then has the ability to go back and tweak these settings to different values for their next run until they discover what is their favorite combination of settings for the game.

In short, it's less changing the gameplay or mechanics, and more adding in accessibility options / controls for those who need it. Only serves to widen the player-base so long as it's kept to just adjusting pre-existing values and not removing currently existing content for the sake of a loud vocal minority.

[The.Almighty.Sear]

Originally posted by Fakeounet:

This sounds great, I think it would please everyone, and adding a way to save for example, so that people that don't want to replay the beginning after dying because of boredom can load a previous save. It would also allow players that like it like this to play whithout saves on !

I feel like this is also a good idea. Could even be integrated into the settings suggestion I made by adding a tick box saying "Manual Saves Permitted" and a slider allowing for something like "Auto Save Frequency". As is, I think... It auto saves at the beginning of each "Day" phase at the actual safehouse. Not entirely sure though.