[Solved] Is it possible to play 'single player' ? (New Player)

[Tesityr]

Just wondering if it is possible to play the game alone - although I do usually solo most games (even games online such as World Of Warcraft or Elder SCrolls Online) - in a game like this, I would do it mostly so that I can learn slowly/properly and not negatively affect anyone else's game while I learn (a 'noob' in someone else's nice setup/fort/etc)...

Is it possible to play vs bots/AI or something?

Thanks for any ideas

[flick]

Yes, it's mostly a single player game. It's also the only way to play without signing up for another account as the game is softlocked offline now.
The story is a solo story. If you play co-op then you have buddies helping you on your co-op story. This means your friends can trigger different bits of missions without you.

The enemies can scale to difficulty, and it's fine to play solo. It's quite doable.

There's no PvP, or co-op bots to help you.

[DedZedNub]

LONG STORY SHORT, with the Right MINDSET, I actually recommend SINGLE PLAYER over the other styles, for privacy, immersion, style of play, and overall control plus avoids most bugs.

For me, still early in the game (60 plus hour, but taking my time on advancing forward on territory and characters), it is ABSOLUTELY POSSIBLE TO PLAY SINGLEPLAYER. And, it is likely that it is the better way to play it, for those into the atmosphere of the game. (And I'm sure if I pressed, as I'm doing a bit in this second character, it can still be done easily Solo, but so far only on first Region Archipelago, so haven't seen everywhere, just can see the game's mindset clearly if swarms don't totally overwhelm)

{TLDR Comparo -- Dying Light 1 is Harder, has more stuff, and better polished. But, I like Generation Zero much because it is less Melee, and something about its environment and solitude just is beautiful. Nice colors, beautiful sky, trees, fog, police lights, less hard when travelling, but also less likely to die to just one thing. Tired of zombies, well no zombies here. DL is way more polished, way more story, melee much more involved. But for the quiet adventurer, a case MAY be made that Generation Zero is a better mix of maneuver quietly to win the firefight. Dying Light 1 with DLC is Great, so don't misunderstand. If you don't have both, DL 1 is the way to go. DL 2 is a debateable and not recommended yet option.}

First, understand, that this game mostly suggests that you are one of the very few survivors. It actually, comments to the contrary, does handle stealth rather well. It is a combo of difficulty level, your choice of movement style (while prone, crouched, or standing), your Skill Choices which aid those choices, and your gear which aid what you wish.

The spawns tend to congregate in three areas. Some are placed. Some are in spawn areas -- much like MMOs tend to do it. Some are on patrol, seemingly intending to either search for you, but more likely to fill in and investigate the areas that had losses. Works for me, very well.

Atmosphere. Well, the graphics, the terrain border on the beautiful, and for gameplay the same. Why? Well, here's a simple observation as example. Grass is everywhere. I don't even need a slider for it. It seems to have ZERO hit on FPS. Wow, yeah, wow. But, if I crouch versus prone, I can see much farther into the grass. Few games get that right, in fact almost none. Yeah, CROUCH sees further into the grass and sees more to danger, than prone. And each is better at concealment or disengaging. This means Terrain , like ridges and hills, even better as they are hard cover or true cover, verus bushes which are concealment from visibility. But beyond that, bushes, trees, grass. provide a lot of helpful cover. Think of cover the way the old October War in SPI magazine in the 1970s made it work. Each hex or unit of distance, is multiplied by a cover rating. That cover rating adds to a concealment total on the path for the enemy looking at you. More hexes of cover, times stance, times movement, equals cover. That's the idea. Of course, enemy uses its brain too. Depending on the enemy, Hunter and above will start staying on alert, once in search mode. Runners and below, usually go back to patrol status. Sometimes Hunters to. Anyway you get the idea.

Worst case, buildings provide true cover, AKA protection from attack. Still may have to worry about Gas -- think of those as poison AoE's. Flamethrowers may get thru occasionally as well. But mostly, most enemies can't get into buildings. The low level miniature Ticks can. Runners can on occasion, and just saw my first Runner (Robot Doggo with a gun on his back and melee charge attacks) placed inside a building. And occasionally a Runner (Doggo) can get inside a building by trying to melee you, or you deciding to leave a large garage door or double door open. Ticks can explode once near you often enough, or when fired upon and destroyed, causing a cascade of possible exploding objects to detonate nearby.

The difficulty with solo play, if any, is that some of the Skill Tree isn't really useful to you. Now, there is a likelihood that the Skill Tree will be revamped in the next major Update, set on the Planning Board to be done about June 30th. But plans are smans with this team sometimes. In the meanwhile, it's 3-4 Skill Points mostly wasted down the tubes to get later down the Skill Tree to some useful stuff. But, you can use those in multiplayer. Just be aware.

Also, you can adjust the difficulty level on the fly. So, if the game is being unfair to you, you can retaliate against the game for the lack of necessary friendly humans in the game. Which is as it should be when the Skill Tree wastes your time. Example are during Base Defense and FNIX Base Assault Missions, which are the gateway to some stuff, in part. There is almost always another way to get the same stuff.

The Enemy is all A.I. The game is You and Any Friends You Have VERSUS the Enemy. Pure P vs E. So Co-Op, or Solo, or bust. That's what I think you want here.

The only problem, which I cannot answer completely, is whether or not, you can Solo with enough Grinding and Fun combo, into the larger Swarms of the later game. I'd lean towards yes for two reasons:

1) Grinding is easy, if you don't mind doing it. Everything is partly useful. Ammo is easy to get on Medium (Skirmish Difficulty). A.I. is fair on that Difficulty so far. You get to put away Gear and Ammo. You can disassemble such and make crafting resources to then make what you need. But you got to get the Schematics, which means you have to find them, AKA search. So far that seems mostly okay. You got to search, explore anyway, and it rewards in other ways always. Always more loot, always more XP, so always okay. Maybe sometimes grindy, but it is a pretty world.

If you go Solo, you are by yourself. But, you can go Hacker Route, and if so you get to Hack the Enemies to temporarily fight each other, say guaranteed for up to 30 seconds, then they tend to fight each other anyways, cuz you fired on me, oh yeah, I fire on you back, etc.

Also, you can use Flares and Fireworks, to either make them fire at nearest Flare, or the Sticky Flare you hit the other Enemy with, or Fireworks make them go sorta haywire, so they fire everywhere, and get confused. Then, my guess is, they trigger intelligent vengeance. You shot me, you pig. I'm gonna shoot you back. Ooops, human shot me more than you, gonna shoot on it then, ya. Duh. Never let Skynet be feared. It's primal, it's an idiot. Dangerous idiot to be sure, and it will beat most humans because duh, look at current world and its decline. But, yeah, beatable by a gamer who realizes which party to vote for, sure.

So. Big Question is ... is it playable. Certainly can Solo on Adventurer (lowest difficulty) and Skirmish (Normal or Medium Difficulty). Can't speak to higher, but most say can be done but is a grind. Just should learn to use all the gear, which is plentiful, and expect that once the enemies have Poison and Radiation Damage stuff, could be tough. Thus, need the right skills, don't waste on just Co-Op Play only skills.

Don't Need to get DLC. Most to All DLC, probably All, is parallel to the standard stuff. Only thing is you get more Maps and Story Missions to play with, or Weapons Pack. First see if you like the game solo.

Buy ON SALE. It is very cheap on sale. Check SteamDB for price. But it is like $6-8 Bucks on Sale, plenty of game to check out. And the DLC doesn't mess up your current base game set-up. I found only more variance and stuff, not less. Doesn't break your Base Game Save, at least for me.

Don't have, but possibly Iron Harvest Series, or Terminator Resistance are similar but better games. IH leans towards also RTS with possible first person viewpoint, where TR is more towards action FPS, but both are similar genres with Robots but less probably towards some stealth and resource scavenging. Also on sale, Gen Zero, should be least expensive.

Couple other quick points. Enemies and you can both get other types of vision or sensors. So your Binocs or Scopes on Weapons can be given an attachement for Infrared, Low Light like Ultravision, or X-Ray, or Tech View to better Identify with your Skill Choices the Weakspots on the Enemies. Enemies have various parts, some parts are armored, some are not. Some spots are weakspots or components. Hit the Component for greater damage or to take out a function. Nice.

So there is plenty of tactics and strategy possible. And Solo will make these very useful to take advantage of. May take a bit of practice. May take carrying some gear. You can carry Binocs, you can customize weapons with attachments. It isn't as good as STALKER ANOMALY which is a free game, but it is not bad. Point is, Solo with gear which can be scavenged from environment, then if needed disaassembled and crafted with Schematics found (often not even need to craft) can create effects that equalize the solo player via effects on mechanics/using features to level playing field.

Check the STICKIED DEV POST at TOP OF FORUMS for DIFFICULTY LEVEL POST -- TLDR it is not an issue. Difficulty Level mostly impacts enemy damage on you, your damage on the enemy. But Loot is the same in terms of amount. EXCEPTION IS ON RIVAL FARMING. RIVALS are named enemies that get special and advance as you increase THREAT or CONTROL over a REGION. You kill more enemies, THREAT OR CONTROL AND THUS RIVALS GET HIGHER AND MORE NUMEROUS. Kill a RIVAL and THREAT GOES DOWN, but you get to loot the special RNG on the RIVAL, which mean better chance at higher tier, usually level 4 or higher STARRED weapons. Once you hit LEVEL 25, RIVALS CAN GIVE EXCEPTIONAL WEAPON DROPS, which is the best there is, often with an additional effect on their ammo, such as electricity, etc.

Here's some minor negatives. Most of gear seems either attach or deploy. Throwing so far seems fake as heck. Deploy at range is a better description. So far, no arc, so no real grenade. My guess is there are some, but my point is, throwing is weak in the game.

Variety of enemies. Maybe not all that many base types. But they can have each several different weapons on them. The weapons are destroyable, so you can cripple what enemy has in stages, and by aiming at the part. EMP matters. So does there vision and detection techniques. There are some raids and base defenses for later. Loot respawns. Most of these are double-edged swords. Mostly to the advantage of the player, as you choose when to max/min each.

Overall, I'd say for Solo seems a definite yes, but the late game has spawn points having multiple spawns. Large the group, more solo is hurting. But, you also have explosives, even on terrain such as electric boxes, and so on -- easily leveling the playing field.

Experimental highest tier weapons have effects on their ammo fired. This can include electric arc lines of trapping between shots. Don't know many games, if any, that can say that.

Story is presented as you go, it isn't lots of words. Not many NPCs. Ladders don't really work. Jumping normally gets you almost to no items. Rare exceptions do exist, which counters the previous observations. Makes you think -- jeez devs make up your mind. Good thing, anything you don't find, you can get eventually off the right drops. Always can make up the difference, via explore, or grind, or kill, or just advance level and fight.

Oh, key point, death has no real penalty. You just start at nearest Safehouse, like in Dying Light, but no XP hit. Also, damage on enemy remains. So persistent, even when you die. So, need twenty of your souls to kick its impenetrable behind. Yep, can do that. OR knock down the difficulty level, kick its arse, bring the Diff Level back up, same deal.

Sorry, a bit tipsey, else I'd not have wasted my time as much. But accurate and should give you the quick take you need to know. BUY ON SALE. Don't be a fool. On sale at least 5-8 times a year. Check on Steam DB for a ballpark. Is on sale often on GreenManGaming, sometimes Gamersgate, sometimes Fanatical.com, all reputable always worked for me, real Steam Keys sights. And Steam of course as well.

[⛔⏯️▶️👱]

If this is you first playthrough, I highly recommend solo play so you play the game at your own phase and it will really help you learn the mechanics of the game: weapon and ammo characteristics as used against various types of bots, bots strong and weak spots, solo play allows you to really understand how to use skill rewards alone or in combination with attire schematics, etc.

After one complete playthrough or after enough time spent on solo play to have a good grasp of the game mechanics, you can join or host multiplayer, which gives a somewhat different experience.

One last piece of advice when playing solo: try to play the game on vanilla first, and If you bought the mission DLCs, play Alpine Unrest first after vanilla play, which will open up Himfjall island (medium size island to the right of the map) triggered by "Not Alone" mission and then Finix Rising, triggered by "Where the sun sets" mission.

Happy gaming.

[DedZedNub]

Appreciate the insight, DontGetPlayed. I had a Not Alone Mission, but seems gone now, which I noticed last night, and seems odd. But, hopefully, it will show up again, and I'll get on the Alpine Unrest first, before FNIX Rising, which is my long time intended goal.

For now, I'm just trying to do the Archipelago Missions, but I know I had Not Alone up there originally as a choice, but now, seems gone. So Hmmsters.

[⛔⏯️▶️👱]

Check your Log. Not Alone should still be there but not activated. Also, try to make it part of your routine to do manually save at least once per session. Copy your svegame and savegame.bac files to another location or compress them with WInzip, WInrar or 7-zip. These files are files are usually located in My Documents\Avalanche Studios\Generation Zero\Saves\71233199547474290 (sample numeric strings).

If you want autobackup, visit this https://www.nexusmods.com/generationzero/articles/8 it has a link to autobackup apps near the end of the article.

[Tesityr]

Originally posted by flick:

Yes, it's mostly a single player game. It's also the only way to play without signing up for another account as the game is softlocked offline now.
The story is a solo story. If you play co-op then you have buddies helping you on your co-op story. This means your friends can trigger different bits of missions without you.

The enemies can scale to difficulty, and it's fine to play solo. It's quite doable.

There's no PvP, or co-op bots to help you.

Thanks a lot!

[Tesityr]

Originally posted by DedZedNub:

LONG STORY SHORT, with the Right MINDSET, I actually recommend SINGLE PLAYER over the other styles, for privacy, immersion, style of play, and overall control plus avoids most bugs.

For me, still early in the game (60 plus hour, but taking my time on advancing forward on territory and characters), it is ABSOLUTELY POSSIBLE TO PLAY SINGLEPLAYER. And, it is likely that it is the better way to play it, for those into the atmosphere of the game. (And I'm sure if I pressed, as I'm doing a bit in this second character, it can still be done easily Solo, but so far only on first Region Archipelago, so haven't seen everywhere, just can see the game's mindset clearly if swarms don't totally overwhelm)
<snip>

Wow thanks for all the great info! I hope it helps other people too

Thanks again