Single Player Experience?

[IndieGameplayITA]

HI all, I would buy this game to play solo (or with a friend).
How is the single player experience?
I really loved State of Ddecay 2 and I'm looking for something similar and why not more difficult..
Are there enemies to fight in single player or NPC where to sell/buy? I love map exploration, base building and storage management..
Or SP Mode is useless at the moment considering that I want to buy it to play solo?

[JonExx]

I play SP (almost) exclusively and I do enjoy it quite a bit.
There are enemies (Puppets/Zombies, Mechs and animals) to fight if you like.
There's a huge and beautiful map to explore, there are NPC traders and doctors,...and you can build a base (while this is not a strength of the game yet).
And if you like storage management, this game is for you, really.

[dustbiter]

This is much worse than State of Decay 2 for single player.

The single player experience doesn't have much content. Devs never bothered to add a sleep function to pass the night like many RPGs. Nights are longer and darker than in State of Decay 2.

You can fight zombies, suicide bomber zombies, wolves, bear. You can keep exploring and looting and hoarding until you realise there's no point to all the hoarding. In State of Decay 2 you can use up weapons/ammo/items on tough enemies/missions or save them on legacy characters. You can handle all SCUM enemies with a M9 pistol with mag.

[Sr. Morajsakom]

If you love exploring, theres plenty to do. Theres a lot of eyecandy if you can turn up your gfx(not only the recent update). Some separate activities are also fun, like fishing for example. Also you can focus on completing achievements.
Sadly there isnt missions or other serious premade tasks other than beginner tutorials...just yet

[evil666sue]

Originally posted by IndieGameplayITA:

I really loved State of Ddecay 2 and I'm looking for something similar

Keep in mind that sod2 is a finished game and scum is still in EA and nowhere near finished.

Originally posted by IndieGameplayITA:

Are there enemies to fight in single player or NPC where to sell/buy? I love map exploration, base building and storage management..
Or SP Mode is useless at the moment considering that I want to buy it to play solo?

Lots of peeps keep busy in SP but imo, at this stage of development, multiplayer is (PvPvE) is the most fun.
The biggest thing missing for SP is armed human NPC's and missions but that's all coming.

If you have the patience for EA and a fun but only partially finished game, then I definitely recommend scum

[EazyLee]

It's a fun survival sim in single player for a while, almost every location pretty much looks the same though and once you get a handle on surviving and set up some sort of base it gets a bit stale. Still a great game though for what it is and it's still in EA so more to come

[Ogami]

Its ok. There is definitely not as much to do as in other survival games in single player ( 7 Days To Die and such).
It can be fun for like 20-30 hours but then you basically seen everything there is to do in SP.

The devs had promised additional SP content since day 1, missions and quests to run and NPC but there really has been nothing since then.
The focus is clearly on the MP part of the game with the SP just an extra mode that does not get much attention by the devs.

[Makeithappen]

Originally posted by dustbiter:

You can handle all SCUM enemies with a M9 pistol with mag.

To OP:
Although this is true with the puppets and once you figure out how to play with all the mechanics in the game it can plateau with you using just an M9 pistol. Or any gun of your choosing.

Mechs however are like this hard obstacle that you can kill if you like but they take a lot of resources and generally don't give you anything as far as loot is concerned. They exist on the map at POIs and bunkers. I know you might earn exp from the experience for skills, but I have not really tried yet. And they may give you fame points but I am not sure. I would say the Mechs are more or less going to be updated at some point, as they don't have much function other than being an patrolling killing machine.

The game has a lot of fun features that are unique to scum. Such as metabolism (proteins, carbs, fibers, sugars, etc.), injuries you have to bandage one at a time, and a few other things that keeps the pace of the game slow. A lot of people like to RP in this game and there are servers that aren't entirely pvp. Some have a mix of pvp/pve with events.

Generally this game is made for multiplayer in mind for PVP. You can team up with friends to do anything in this game together. Including bunkers.

Since this is Early Access there is still a lot of development it needs. So expect crashes, bugs, partial wipes of bases and all you own. This includes single player. You keep your skills you've leveled however. Its a really fun game but single player can feel empty. You can modify your game to include more puppets. But these aren't state of decay 2 zombies. They are much tougher and just 2 can kill you if you are not careful.

[LillyByte]

I love the framework SCUM offers, but to me... this game still misses the fun factor.

Zombie count is far too low to be any kind of a threat to anybody besides a newbie to the game. PVP is often just full of overtly toxic people who get salty when they die, so it's just not a fun experience.

Really, all this game needs for Single Player/Coop experience are random wandering hordes that can threaten your base if they start smacking on it, or occasionally surprise you if you make noise while out looting, etc.

[Nobody19666]

this game lacks gameplay in an horrendous bad bad way, i think... plus it has the worst and sorest interface in inventory ever seen in a videogame since the times of nintendo 8 bit sistem... the devs add somerthing here and there but the game's problem remains the same: no gameplay at all. deadly pity! this game could be greath and awesome with the right choices but it seems that the devs lack of ideas about it. just my thought dudes, so please no flame or pikes lifted to the sky now. cheers.

peace dudes...

[[p][u][n] ☕]

I've only played the first state of decay and if the 2nd in the series is anything at all the same, then I'll submit to you that this game is entirely nothing at all like state of decay.

The single player experience is wide as an ocean but with the depth of a pond so to speak. One would struggle make a compelling case that development has put in content as of late to enhance the single player experience. And that isn't being critical of the developers, this game is multi player focused, so they have their priorities and they're transparent about it.

This is a very detailed survival game where all you're doing is surviving from other players. So if you're playing single player, you're not "surviving", you're playing camping/looting simulator in a static world void of actual threat. To expand on this;

1. The primary enemies (puppets) don't pose a threat, not in any way that could be considered a challenge. A simple bow with basic stick arrows will kill then in 2-3 hits. You normally don't have to fight more than one at a time, but should you encounter more than two or three, you can easily exploit their inability to open doors or climb through windows and escape a small crowd of them if you're not equipped for fighting for some reason. If you're equipped with a gun, they're just target practice at this point.
   
   If you want puppets to pose a threat, you can modify a config file and make them hit for far higher and spawn in far greater numbers with a short respawn timer. This is the way to go, in my opinion.
   
   Bears on the other hand will shred you but they're not common enough to tilt the general threat level to something that is noteworthy.
   
   Bipedal mechs patrol military bases and camps. They're plenty dangerous when you first encounter them, but they move on a fixed patrol path, only deviating when they spot you and move to your location. So anyone with older metal gear solid games experience, this isn't anything new. Third person view gives you all the information you need to slip through bases with little trouble.
   
   
2. So if enemies aren't much of a danger, what about basic needs like food and water? Even on default settings, you will find ample food. Just have to search everything and its tedious. Rivers have fresh water. You can take empty bottles and load up on as much as you can carry.
   
   
3. What about the elements themselves? Well.. sure you can freeze your ♥♥♥♥ off if you go up to the snowy mountains without sufficient cold gear, but beyond that you're not at risk of anything from the outdoors. Rain will make your clothing wet thus make your gear weigh more but I don't think I've heard of anyone dying from rain, even tangentially.
   
   
4. All the cool and unique systems that are currently in SCUM are compelling except for the fact that its just background noise when death clears you of illnesses and injuries. Metabolism takes a very long time to influence changes in your characters body (which is a good thing in my opinion) so you generally don't have to pay much attention to it.

TL:DR


What you're left with is, like I said previously, is an out door camping simulator on a ghost island with enemies who might as well be tweaked out meth heads who have gone feral.

The game is in desperate need for a handful of new enemy types and enemies that roam the map to deliberately hunt the player. But that takes a lot of resources and its a small team who may not have deep experience in creating those types of AI.

Even rudimentary new enemies would be a better return on development time than a plane that almost no one flies.

[Sr. Morajsakom]

Some of the answers here feel like theyve been made out of a game that is done and seen, no mention about its to-be-done status.

I can promise that you will find serious difficulty in the game by raiding military locations, avoiding the mechs and ultimately attempting to complete one of the biggest challenges called kill-boxes. The amount of puppets can also be adjusted to make the game fit your difficulty level.

If youre hoping that the game actively suggests you tasks to do other than just basic surviving wherever you might go, then it might be better to wait for missions to be released.

Its more of a diy game for single play currently, you've got to create your way. Some people might like that more than about a game that has a set path and a goal to go for.

EDIT: Personally, i avoid using the outposts for single play as they make it feel way too easy to get gear and whatever you might want. Another thing to adjust single play, i would perhaps remove vehicles that have a motor exept for motor boats and planes. They make traveling around to feel like i could aswell use the teleport command, after i get a motor its just going from a to b without anything to worry. Tractor for basebuilding needs only.

[wiccanen]

is there a reason why i have seen NO animals in SP???

[Sr. Morajsakom]

Originally posted by wiccanen:

is there a reason why i have seen NO animals in SP???

It could be that animals follow the same rule as puppets in many places, first time you visit the location, there seems to be nobody around. When you return to the same place again, its full of...whatever is supposed to be there. For me the most obvious thing following this rule is any gas station.

So if you step into a possible area where an animal spawning may be triggered, for the first time it might not work. But second time triggering the spawner it works normally. Its just a guess.

Hoping a dev would comment on the animal thing. It really might seem like theres no animals around if going for new places is the only thing single players do, and animals only spawn into already visited locations.

EDIT: So i tried it immediately, and soon ran into a boar. When following the boar backwards where i came from, trying to get it with my bow, i soon started to hear noises of a donkey. So 2 animals right after. Took a few hits from a 50 pound bow...[prnt.sc]

[phillipinpc]

I have a 1000 hours single game. I dont enjoy MP gaming in any genre, never have, never will. At first i just play the game as it downloads. Eventually i turned up some settings so more puppets and animals. Its very vast environment and different climate areas with different methods of finding food and water in each. The devs are good at adding cool stuff. I have not tried any coop type with it. As a single player game, I ave never had one to keep me interested this long. One thing, I am a visual gamer, the scenery/graphics is a priority for me, the game is stunning in 4k. Storage mgmt is great. Base building right now is more geared towards protecting your stuff as opposed to spectacular bases but you can stil get pretty creative and have something to behold as you drive up to it. Map exploration is awesome. Number one all time single player game for me.