Suggestion: Open World

[TrashGamer]

People in end game are looking for things to do. They complain about end game progression and want something to keep them engaged.

This doesn't necessarily need to be some kind of end game progression system. People do things for rewards yes, but they also do things because its fun and/or explorative.

I'm not naieve. I know how long a development process can take, so by the time you designed and built what I'm about to suggest, your corporate overlords may not be OK with putting this kind of investment into it with the low sales / concurrent player counts.

That being said here's the idea:

As the title suggests, is basically an Open World map. Not limited to 4 people specifically either. This is where players can meet up and chat and whatever else they want to do.

You don't need to start from scratch. You have a ton of assets you can use from Hell or High Water and the surrounding maps. Yes you'll have to build them out further, make a real Georgetown out of it with fast travel / car connectors between Georgetown, Founders Square, Lincoln Memorial, etc. to all the places currently discovered on the map.

Let us jump on roof tops, give us some more starting ammo but make us scavange for the rest. Don't need a horde-o-meter for this or if so make it much harder to fill up. The idea is to give people a city to explore and just let us kill walkers endlessly.

No need to have rewards even for something like this. Maybe still give headshot and accuracy / kills statistics when you choose to leave or die. Also, unless your in a group no need to have knockdowns. When you're dead you're dead. Start over.

Or depending on the scale of the map maybe you can put weapon cases or mods in the map. But if the map is big enough put them deep enough in that you can't just grab and exit. You've got to make your way back. This could get complicated if it's truely open world where other players are playing.

Having said that, that could be an interesting idea as well. Maybe not Open World map but smaller scale, but it be PvP. Not in the sense where players kill each other, I'm not sure the PING / desync / character movement mechanics would be well suited for that, but a sort of capture the flag type deal. Pit 4 players against each other in a race for the blue/epic mod case. Players can set their own traps in areas where they predict the player with the case is going to go. Use the Horde-o-meter where players can use walkers against the carrier creatively. If / when the person with the case dies by walkers or traps (since players can't directly shoot each other) then the other players have to race to get the case.

Don't know just thinking out loud and letting the idea flow. Sure, it might be faster to do a expedition to get a mod case, can do some of those in 5 minutes. But this sounds like a much more fun experience for the player base.

[PazZz0]

This is such a perfect idea, people were disappointed on the games release it being a mission based game, that sadly lets narrative take a back seat. I love the mission based gameplay but something like this would give people things to do other than repeating missions over and over. You could go out and find survivors or camp resources. Also being able to fight against roaming family or brigade with the possiblity of finding camps and such. This would bring a whole new level to the game making it extremely interesting for new and recurring players.

[Hesitation✅♿🍁]

basically you want dying light, but in the walking dead universe, which is basically all everyone ever wanted

[Nijo]

Open world would be a comepletely different game ( and a better one), but a large non linear map would be great, with actual random elements and mini events within it (and no I don't mean change what forklift parts we need to find).

I feel like this is what On the Run should have been, but the scale of the map was just far too small. I would love the map that you suggest, where the objective is to just scavenge supplies.

Just some random thoughts:

As a change, Caleb could follow you through the streets in his truck as you loot.

The reward for the mission could be a guaranteed a weapon, but the quality of it is determined by how many bags of loot you gather. You can finish whenever you want by going back to Caleb.

I wouldn't mind a traditional horde meter otherwise it might not be challenging, but maybe instead a herd could appear as a random event, or make it time based. They wouldn't be homing in on you like usual, but just a large horde wandering through the streets to make you hide and stay silent.

And if the devs are reading this, pls no Brigade.

[Ostinato]

This would be framerate fest ^^
I don't know how they manage to do open world games but just compare FPS on small and big sized maps in games like this one and you'll understand why the maps have a limited size.

I still need to launch dying light and compare both but the graphics on OTWD are pretty great, I'm often disappointed by open world games.

It surely could have been an open world but I don't think you can transform it after launch like this, this would be such a mess on code, optimization etc.

Maybe adding an OW mode that doesn't touch the existing maps would be possible, but so much work on that, after they release a game the major part of the team moves to another project (p3yd3y ? <3 <3), they're not working full time on making new maps and fixes, so imagine transforming the game into sometimes 20x bigger than it was at release.


I suggest you try to watch (if you didn't) small devs videos explaining game dev or work in progress videos and you'll see for all you want they have to restart totaly the game. (even assets surely have to be redone for optimization needs)

Also I find open worlds boring, (not a huge fan so I didn't palyed the better ones, only far cry/assassin's creed/Ghost Recon Wildlands) copy pasted zones badly optimized for combat where you always can escape your ennemies instead of being forced to deal with them in a zone that has been made corner by corner, crate by crate to make the fighting fun and challenging.
If I want an O W game I'l pick one, but "maps" games like this are not less interesting, stop always wanting ALL games to be open worlds. All you get with that is poney simulator with 100H of fedex job sim and the game goes to trash bin. (exept when they put a pvp mode, but there are really enough pvp open worlds nawadays, let the PVE games live ! And even the best OW pve games don't last you more than 100/200H)

Not saying your ideas are bad, and yes something has to be done for the big endgame problem :/