Factions ; More variety in fight ; New Game options ; More characters per group

[xX_PeterGriffinGaming_Xx]

This post is going to be a little full of content, but please bear through. I love the game as it is, but I've been thinking about new ways to unleash the full potential of the game.

1. Factions & Human Interaction
I love human interaction and how it's handled in the game, but it deserves a small overhaul.

First is the way factions play out in-game. Sometimes you can help another group out with problems, but without a face to face meeting, it's not very memorable or exciting. It makes you feel like a mercinary.

The factions we see in-game are Bandits, Survivors, Traders, the Player Group, Zombies, and Military. I feel like the ability to join with another survivor group would be very cool if you're alone, but the group you joins' characters are bot-controlled, not allowing you to pick perks or weapons or armor or tasks for them, but only for your people.

In combat, as previously stated, we sometimes have a choice between two factions, such as the bandits v zombies sequence. We never really get to kill the ones we choose to first, making the player just choose whoever's harder to kill to get out of the way. Factions should be able to have multiple members at once on the battlefield. I've divided this into Neutral, people who won't attack unless the Player group attacks them, and Hostile, those who attack Neutral and Player groups.

Neutral:
Player Group (if you keep doing bad things, Neutral factions are more likely to try to kill you.)
Survivors (depending on situation.)
Military (depending on the situation.)
Traders.

Hostile:
Bandits
Zombies

In the heat of combat, there should be a random chance that a dialogue box pops up, presenting the option of asking passerbys for help. This would allow you to either call for help and ambush the group who comes if they do come, call for help and don't ambush, or ignore the passerbys. Passerby groups, if you're alone, may ask you to join them. Passerby groups may try to kill you and your enemies. They may side with your enemies. They would be any faction other than zombies.

There should also be parts of the game where, for instance, a survivor steals your food and you can try to stop them, or you can walk with random encounter survivors into the ambush sequence, making it much more memorable than just the dialogue box.

2. More variety in combat
I feel like some fights should have more than one faction, like stated above, but in addition, gunfire should attract more basic zombies (walkers, runners). As well, enemies should have access to all weapons and weapon combinations, being able to use shields and ability skills to defeat other groups.

The option of running away should be available by running from where you are on the map to a dedicated exit point, but not on every map, creating situations where you are stuck fighting it out. If you do run, hostile groups should close in on you, whose locations can be tracked by Scouting (makes the circle where they're at on the map become red with arrow pointing "Bandits").

For scouting, multiple people should be able to go on scavenging trips at once, which lets the player explore a location with the option to leave at any time, with some kind of danger at that location. The goal would be to get as much loot as possible out of the trip.

It would also be interesting for enemies to attack you instead of you them. For instance, if you just get back from a fight, eat quick, and then go scouting, it would be interesting to come back to a bandit raid coming back from scouting, initiating another fight sequence.

It would also be interesting for you to have the option to attack forts or camps for a sizable loot reward, but you come out into the place the way bandits or zombies do, while the target is randomly positioned. Role reversing is a very good way to diversitize fight scenes.

A new set of control options for player characters; A choice minimum distance which when hit, they run away from the enemy, a choice to target strongest, weakest, closest or farthest enemy as a priority, and a passive for medics to automatically run to and heal allies who need healing (and heal neutral and player group).

3. More Options for New Games
New game options are very limited, and replayability begins to slow down after multiple wins. I feel the following new choices for a custom game could increase replayability.

Spawn list edits - Choose which enemies spawn in each group. This would let you choose only walkers for zombie groups or only destroyers, boomers, and leeches, or just having military but no bandits, or choosing entire factions to omit from the playthrough. This is good for people who'd like a much harder or much easier game.

Infection Level on/off - This would let you turn on or off map infection, allowing you to disable the yellow-out to create longer lasting games.

Start location - City, Suburbs/Woods, or Subway Station. The choice to pick a start place.

4. My last suggestion is boosting the character limit. The odds for a larger group than 6 are medium, but I've had runthroughs where I had many many recruits who just disappeared because of the 8 limit. I know this would be an issue with between-round sequences, so here's my solution;

Make a character book item which you can click. This would let you manage any of your survivors from one location. All but 8 characters can just be off-screen, and still be accessed through the character book but clicking on it and clicking their photo, which would be added on them joining the group. This prevents bugs and allows for a larger limit to be held, and solves existing character placement issues.

[Oleg Kazakov]

Great post! A lot of your suggestions are great, but the scale of it seems like it would be more suited towards a sequel rather than just an update. I will think on your suggestions though, thank you