State of decay 1 or 2?

[matthew]

I cant figure out which one i should get. Which one's better?

[cruinne]

There are a lot of things in the new State of Decay I like, but I only played through a couple times and quit. State of Decay YOSE I played to death... then into undeath... and a bit beyond.

They're both essentially the same game, with a lot of the same mechanics, except the first one has three modes: Story (like a long tutorial), Breakdown (sandbox mode on the same map with increased difficulty each time you complete a certain task), and Lifeline (a different map and different story). With Breakdown, you have a lot of replayability to the game, and the game can get ridiculously hard (which is as delightful as it can be frustrating).

With 2, you get three maps to start (but, AFAIK, no way to choose which one you play except restart until you get it, which is annoying) but "finishing" and moving on just restarts the game at the same difficulty level... except it's all easier because you start with perks from your finished game. It just didn't seem worth it. I'm going to replay the same game I just played but easier? Pass.

Given that you can pick up YOSE cheap, and that you can get considerably more hours out of it if you happen to like it, I think it's more worth the purchase at this time.

[Magic Mark]

State of Decay 2 fixes many of the objective flaws in the first game while adding additional maps to play in and a totally randomized character generator with over a thousand new traits that each do something to some degree (yes, even the seemingly flavor ones can influence starting equipment and even what hero bonus they get). Regardless, there is a lot to say about this.

The objective disadvantage that the new game has over the first is the lack of gamemodes. The first game had the benefit of a 'standard' and a 'sandbox-like' version that let you choose whether you wanted a semi-structured version of RNG elements or one where you could rely solely on RNG and gradually build in difficulty with a map reset button.

Despite what the above comment says (even though they are still - absolutely - correct for the most part), you can still increase your difficulty by moving maps in the second game, although if you 'beat' the game on any of these maps, your run is over. A common long-play technique here is to avoid clearing out all of the blood plague in order to avoid the endgame conflict from triggering, or simply moving towns at the end of the questline to get a fresh start with your entire community. Keep in mind that this is a work-around. The developers are supportive of it, but if you are like me and just completed the new mission because you had no idea you were starting into a final questline, it's pretty easy to lose track of those opportunities.

Again, if you do complete the final quest and end your run, you get rewarded with new-game plus (which, in my subjective opinion, is actually something more developers should be doing since beating a new AAA game in 2019 isn't rewarding at all).

However, since the second game is supposed to be a combination of a story mode and 'infinite' mode, the "story" elements took the hardest hit. Having your questlines be chosen at random can certainly give you a lot of replay value, but the absolute lack of structure to it is problematic. You don't know when these start or end, and since RNG helps determine what actually happens it is very difficult to find guides online to help you if you ever don't know what to do. The iffy-ness of an open world buggy game where "important" characters to a questline can die before the questline is completed if you aren't careful can easily throw a stick in your spokes as well.

Negatives aside, the first game is still the one that is more spread thin. Survivors that you get are not randomly generated, only randomly selected from a predefined list of 100+ people, with a ton of crossover of the traits between them (and in a lot of cases, appearance as well). The second game has more traits that do more and allow you to get characters that are far more specialized and unique than they will ever be in the first game. But the first game also has story characters that while being the same in every single playthrough, probably offer more cohesion to the story mode.

~~

My opinion? Despite the second game having blatant improvement in the gameplay department, consider whether you would prefer a structured experience of a game with better story elements or a RNG free-for-all that is definitely the crunchier option. The first game is a shorter experience, but it is more cohesive. The second game has infinitely better replay value and more to do, but the new mechanics are loose and RNG decides what kind of story you will actually have. That's my 2c of the USD. And if you could get the first game for cheap, I would totally recommend running through the story mode at least once.

Oh, and the second game has 4 player co-op based on the host's progress (requires you to have survivors of your own to play with). Remember that as well - it's reached the point where most of the bugs are fixed and a lot of it has been rebalanced. There are regular content updates, which is more that could be said for the first game even when it was supported due to strict restrictions placed on the devs by microsoft at the time.

[Magic Mark]

One thing that I think should be mentioned as well is that the first game penalizes you for inactivity (supplies will dwindle while you aren't playing it for up to two days) making you have to do upkeep and maintenance in real-time to prevent your base from falling into disrepair. It isn't totally unforgiving, but the second game having no form of this at all is a big plus especially if you are looking for something that you can just hop back into every now and then.

[Jigsaw]

Nr 1 = got mods = makes it even more fun to play.
Nr 2 = well its multiplayer/ shoot gaming.. fun a while but I stick with the old school =)

[Dizzy Ioeuy]

I like both. However if you've never played 1, I'd go with that- the two DLCs for 1 are a lot of fun. The military one is a blast, imo.

[Prince Vegeta]

2 could have been amazing if it were done right. 1 is the better pick tbh.

[Boresight]

I love YOSE and I wish they would have continued to support it. I love the survivors, and you do get attached to many of them. There are 3 modes of play, and Breakdown is alot of fun and challenging (you can place different challenges for yourself, such as not using any vehicles or meds, or staying at a different location each time...) YOSE remains on my computer and I will never uninstall it. If the game was coop, and they kept the gameplay the same, I would give YOSE a 10 our of 10.

[solon[fr]]

Prefer the 1

[[OT]Nekrage]

Originally posted by Outlaw Star:

2 could have been amazing if it were done right. 1 is the better pick tbh.

You mean like....if it was released on Steam like all PC games should be?

[Arnold Rimmers Gazpacho Soup]

Originally posted by OTNekrage:

Originally posted by Outlaw Star:

2 could have been amazing if it were done right. 1 is the better pick tbh.

You mean like....if it was released on Steam like all PC games should be?

I have been playing it on the free game pass and the absolute worst thing about is is windowed full screen being forced and constantly bringing up the border or having your aim/camera being screwed up. The only times I have died so far have been from the damn screen locking up thanks to microsoft store counting it as an app. These developers really made a stupid call not having it on store for at least that reason. I am really glad I did not buy it at least.

[Oubley]

haven't played 2 because it's not on steam nor do I have an xbox but the first one was decent fun, it had it's glitches though too like zombies going through walls, the melee special abilities controls can be a little wonky, and sometimes sizing the screen. Overall it was a good buy and the recent YOSE version with standard/lifeline/breakdown offered three varied game experiences. In some ways i liked it better then last of us for the action, the story is more sandbox or what story you make up for your characters. Oh and the really annoying thing was events in the game happened in real time. So when you saved the game continued to cycle through it's events and your morale/hunger and such would still go down, even despite that the game still managed to be good and overcome that annoyance.

[Nemo, Forevermore]

Originally posted by Jigsaw:

Nr 1 = got mods = makes it even more fun to play.
Nr 2 = well its multiplayer/ shoot gaming.. fun a while but I stick with the old school =)

So much this ^^^

SoD w/mods > SoD2

Any. Day. Of. The. Week.

[jojobe]

i agree with SOD 1. SOD 1 has high replay even though i like some of the feature in 2 overall its not a better game.

[morph113]

SoD 2 got an update today introducing 2 new difficulties and some really nice changes. I actually prefer SoD 2 now to be honest. It just feels better in every way than the first game. At launch I would have said SoD 1 (with DLC) is better, but they slowly but surely are improving SoD 2. Plus the map of SoD 1 will come to SoD 2 as well, although there is no release date yet. Which would make it 4 maps in total. In SoD 1 it just get's boring after a while playing always on the same map and always the same few base locations.

[[OT]Nekrage]

Originally posted by morph113:

I actually prefer SoD 2 now to be honest.

It's not on Steam so that doesn't make any sense.