New Early Game Discussion [Polish Stages]

[Dark the Great]

To address concerns of giving players more time to "breath" and to better simulate the virus we are proposing to make the following changes. Feel free to drop your comments/suggestions below.

We expect to start on this adjustment this week on 3/8-3/10 and have something playable within a few days.

After this we will be focusing on what was discussed here https://steamcommunity.com/app/979640/discussions/0/3192494154712223081/

Stage 1 (First 10 minutes)

1. Chelsey is randomly spawned on the map by herself. She will locate and start chaos and trouble across the Island allowing the virus to spread substantially slower
   "As in most feedback sessions we found people felt the Infection is way to fast and efficient in its spreading and in most cases taking only 10 mins for map domination with the current setup "
   
2. We will send news pings/notification to the player notifying them of grisly murders/attacks going on in X district. The player will have to launch a mission to investigate these zones and figure out where Chelsey is actually and stop the small outbreaks that would spring up from her infecting people.
   
3. Chelsey will locate a location to place a "Hive" where she finds safe building defense emplacements and starting her campaign to spread this could be close to where she started initially in some games or far away depending on what her AI decides is "safe"

Stage 2 and beyond (First 10-20 minutes)

1. Chelsey will create a LT every 10 minutes up to a max of three
   
2. Chelsey will use these LT's to launch counter attacks if you've attempted to wall her in/ just lead a new force to expand rapidly in a direction
   
3. Each LT will have a different combat focus. Stealth, Firearms & Buffing units
   
4. You must kill all three LT's to unlock Shredder rounds
   
5. An improvement to their AI would be part of this push to make them more intelligent

New Pod Defense System

Based on feedback from the community it would appear we need to adjust how Infected backup/reinforcements operate on a whole, Infected will still have a global pool for the player to determine how well they are doing + a regional pool of how many defenders/infected they can call on to counter attack. This regional pool will be for each zone and will get larger by how many civilians have been turned in a zone.
This is an effort to make it impossible to simply bleed the infected ticker dry by farming one location for hours and also stopping the infinite horde spam that can occur quite often making attacking a pod tedious.,

[Vinnmobile]

I like these ideas!

[Vex]

This lay out is great with the LT's they should absolutely all get even more kind of unique buffs to them,

Like one is resistant to fire, or one is resistant to bullets. with balancing and tweaks this type of element to the LT's would requiter more planing and strategy to when the player wants to take one out.
and to find out the weakness/buffs of each one in game, perhaps you spend science points to do so,

And they all need a unique looks to them, you know like how Nemesis and MR X are in resident evil, something along them lines so you see them and think there is some bad MF'rs right there.

Also one last thing i know is off topic but what about adding some kind of subway/sewer system as a sub layer to the city.
i don't know how feasible this is but that could help with how infected can move
and pop up / spawn, so when the pods are destroyed the zombies can still spawn from subway points / sewer acses points.
Just an idea.

[UNSCjet1337]

These sound like great ideas. Now just need to play with them and see how well they work.

[Ratman]

Sounds like good ideas to me. I'm excited to try it out in the future.

[Profi_Killer]

I also think this would be way better. I don't like that pods can spawn in random locations in controlled area. i.e. It doesn't make sense to have a pod to spawn next to my HQ.

Having the enemy action centered around Patient Zero would make much more sense, but also for players a better antagonist as we can plan our actions around that. Here some Feedback to your ideas though:

Originally posted by Dark the Great:

We will send news pings/notification to the player notifying them of grisly murders/attacks going on in X district. The player will have to launch a mission to investigate these zones and figure out where Chelsey is actually and stop the small outbreaks that would spring up from her infecting people. Quoted text

I believe the pings should be a result in building intel building, scouts or upgrades. A player needs to make a choice if he wants the resources put into intel or into muscle.

Originally posted by Dark the Great:

Chelsey will locate a location to place a "Hive" where she finds safe building defense emplacements and starting her campaign to spread this could be close to where she started initially in some games or far away depending on what her AI decides is "safe"

The spread should be based on her actions. I'm not sure if the virus is airborne but even so, it shouldn't jump from one island to another without her going there or the infections spreading there. Ie. let's assume that you lock off an island by just blocking the bridge but nothing else. The rest of the island should be secure no matter if you control it or not as long you don't let infected in or patient zero and her underlings.

In addition, i would like to a have a fight or flight response from Patient zero in early game. It would make sense that Patient Zero needs also time to become stronger by assimilating more DNA. Hence, at the beginning it might be easier to hurt her. I hated always the invincible aspect (like, i shot with her with 20 arty while she stands still and she stays at health of 50%). Would be much smoother if she would run away and hide if she gets hit early game and relocate her base.

Originally posted by Dark the Great:

New Pod Defense System
Based on feedback from the community it would appear we need to adjust how Infected backup/reinforcements operate on a whole, Infected will still have a global pool for the player to determine how well they are doing + a regional pool of how many defenders/infected they can call on to counter attack. This regional pool will be for each zone and will get larger by how many civilians have been turned in a zone.
This is an effort to make it impossible to simply bleed the infected ticker dry by farming one location for hours and also stopping the infinite horde spam that can occur quite often making attacking a pod tedious.,

I would love to see a bit more creativity while staying within the realism. I.e. Infection will jump of high buildings on helicopters to make airborne actions more troublesome. Infected will come together to create human shields... or if we go for the ant hive logic, they will use concrete, stones of the surroundings and glue it together with human flesh to build stronger defences.

[Baltazar Gąbka]

What about additional map changes? At first, there would still be pockets of surviving soldiers in few places, streets would be cleaner, etc. , but as pandemic would spread ruined cars and dead bodies would spawn, soldiers would get overran if you would not help them, civilians would start making compounds to protect themselves.

[Dreason]

Honestly all sounds good there, fixing a chunk of the issues I do see with the game so far with these choices. Looking forward to seeing them implemented!

[Maunuar]

Looking forward to these updates! I like how indepth you're making the civilian systems. I'm sure we could provide better feedback once they're implemented more.

[Dark the Great]

Quick update thanks for all the feedback guys. We are currently finishing up some more path finding fixes and we'll be back on pushing this new early game out for you folks. Hang tight!

[Robthedude]

great stuff, i'd also hope to see helicopter path finding to be improved massively tho, since the new map i had HUGE problems with their navigation skills when having to fly between tall buildings and sometimes they would get stuck, bump around like a slot machine ball or fly an entire different direction resulting in their death.

aside that, i would like to see some mechanic where civilians become aware of the outbreak and start to try to flee the area towards other parts of the island in cars and such which they later abandon or turn into armored gun mounted ones as the game progresses, kinda to simulate that moment you often see in movies where chaos/panic erupts and news gets broadcast and perhaps some choosing to lock themselves on the roofs of tall buildings which requires a helicopter to extract.

i also struggled a bit with civs just doing what they want, some just casually walk across a bridge while infected run at them essentially getting them killed, others just run into my base without being able to regulate them, like i would like to have them report to some checkpoint or whatever to get inspected with at the very least some indication of infection or concerning things like "wound detected" or something like that to then proceed to quarantine them.
right now it's more feasible to lock them all outside and shoot anyone turning into zombies as otherwise zombies will just run in and start beating up buildings, or to just straight up shoot anyone regardless if they are healthy, infected or zombies.
i also had quite some moments ppl just started becoming zombies inside my base eventho they were there from the beginning of me fortifying and nothing could get in through the choke point which is frustrating.

sorry for the late feedback btw ^^;

[CarolusMagnus]

Looking forward to this! If not already mentioned earlier or planned, I would recommend that some of the notifications be distractions, i.e. suspicious deaths/incidents that turn out to be just "normal" human to human stuff.

[Taity]

After having recently purchased the game and playing several play through's i must say i am loving the game, the devs have made a little gem right here...

Now as to the proposed idea's.
I like the general direction/plan you have with the initial start of the plague, however i do think that something more realistic could be introduced while still using the same systems/idea's you have.
Currently you are planning on making Patient 0 start the plague and have it spread from there correct?
If this is the case, could i suggest that the start could go like this. The player either chooses their start location and/or is given one at random. (essentially on one of the 'four' islands). After this Patient 0 Spawns in the world map in a zone different to the island the player is located on. Once spawned have patient 0 target 10-20 random civilians (5 in her immediate area and the rest at random locations around the map that she will travel to). The first '5' civilians she attacks basically become "spreaders" who will go to random zones and make a 'hive' there to spread the virus from (different from the normal pod thingies). They stay there for 'x' amount of time/days before mutating into the LT zombie versions, where they proceed to function as you have suggested/like normal.
These 5 LT's each hold a key DNA sample needed to understand the "evolutionary" process of the virus and thus be able to "unlock" a way to stop patient 0, so taking them out becomes a core focus part of the game, and you could make it so that these LT's dont venture far from the hive they originally spawn, so that way if it gets attacked the LT comes to protect it, but in order to kill the LT its specific Hive must be destroyed or at the least over 40% damaged. (to prevent cheesing of killing LT's or their hives)

As for the remaining random "civilians" that get attacked/targeted by patient 0 at the start, have them become a kind of like a "mini boss" (so weaker than a LT), but these will actively lead raids/attacks on non-infested zones and against the player and other factions. The idea of this is to lead to a more active defensive game play especially if you have managed to lock down and control an entire island. To keep the game going, have it set so when ever a mini boss is killed, patient zero and/or one of the LT's will infect a new civilian to replace that mini boss (obviously cant happen once all zones are infected) or have it so that when one dies, a zombie near one of the "hives" made by the LT's/patient 0 will go into the hive and after 'x' time come out as a new version of the mini boss who was killed. You could add delay timers to their attack patterns when they respawn this way to stop them from endlessly coming at the player.

This i think will help slow down the initially progression of the virus, thus giving the player time to set up a basic base and maybe a designated area to build their civilian containment zones to control the groups of civilians making their way from infected zones to safer area's, while also keeping everything random enough that no two games would play the same and keeping the world from being overrun with pods and zombies within a few days.
It would also make for a more generic spread of the virus as it would start in a few small area's but quickly spread out from these locations. This would also make it easier (especially early game/mid game) for players to try and rescue civilians in area's where the plague has not fully taken over yet or is still not infected.
With the added mini bosses helping to keep the pressure on the player and other factions, this could really mean that going out on missions away from your base can be risky if a mini boss decides to come knocking when your crack shot team is away, but also give the player a real chance to interact with the other factions, either by helping them against the zombies, or helping the zombies to destroy them or taking them out yourself.

The idea around it tho is to give the world and the map a bit more life, and due to the way the virus is spread, it would account lore wise for why some civilians are not armed and just run, why some are armed with pistols and or guns, and why some are in "fortified" locations that the player and/or factions can go rescue for rewards (either cash, zone control, more manpower (increased pop cap) or even just a basic buff to all units like ability to carry more ammo or increased stats or access to better equipment).

This would encourage players and the factions to try to get out to these places and "rescue" the survivors or miss out on the rewards altogether if you wait too long. It would add alot of tactical game play especially if hostile factions or civilians become a more pressing thing as you could try to "sabotage" a factions attempts getting there, or help them get there and rescue the people for a reward from that faction, or even risk taking fire from aggressive civilian groups who want the goodies.

I also think it would help separate the sudden jump you have when you go from not being able to kill patient 0 to being able to kill her with the shredder rounds upgrade. Essentially it would kind of work like this. To kill patient 0 you need to have killed the 5 LT's, to kill the 5 LT's you need to obtain "shredder rounds". To obtain shredder rounds you must either;
a) rescue a group of civilians in a fortified location
b) help/support a faction enough to achieve a rank that rewards these
c) Destroy a faction to obtain these (only if said faction has them unlocked via helping civilians in a fortified location and/or some other condition(s)).
d) Spend 'x' money and 'x' amount of DNA to unlock.
Once you have those you can go fight and damage the LT and its hive (then set it so the hive must be destroyed OR reach a certain dmg threshold) before the LT becomes vulnerable (like the hive is somehow healing or assisting the LT so taking it out or damaging it enough first becomes a must), this last part is mostly to try and limit cheap or cheesy methods of killing stuff (things like 5 snipers in a chopper = death to anything (even patient 0 if you have shredder rounds) from max range with ZERO chance of death, or the good old artillery spam on the LT and/or hive)

This way it would give purpose to all the civilians, give a room for "conflict or friendship" with factions and potentially non aggressive civilians, and make it so zombies are not your only threat because some civilians may be aggressive/hostile towards the player/factions. It would enhance the early game, give more depth to the midgame and give a clear way to meet the endgame and win against patient 0, but it spreads it out over a more progressive/prolonged period and depending on how it spreads will open or close numerous tactical choices for the player, meaning that trying to slow or contain the spread early game becomes a viable choice that currently is not ingame, while still ensuring the inevitable spread of the virus will occur due to the player being unable to control all the different locations the virus will spring up from due to the interactions of patient 0 and the LT's and their hives.

I do not know if these idea's or thoughts help, but maybe you can gain something from them that will help enhance on the amazing product you already have. Cant wait to see more!

[LunaticMethod]

I know this isn't about the changes being introduced, but I feel it's pretty relevant for an "early game" discussion and I don't want to spam the forum with threads.

It doesn't make sense to me from a story or gameplay perspective as to why you have to unlock flashlights, medics and gas masks for a biological disaster response paramilitary organization. They can provide guns, explosives, vehicles, and helicopters out of the gate, but flashlight attachments for weapons have to be funded and greenlit? Same for gas masks. What kind of biological anything doesn't have air filtration equipment and doctors present for a ground operation?

In regards to gameplay, the upgrades are cheap enough compared to your starting funds that the only time I don't buy these upgrades immediately is when I forget, and it's annoying to find out you didn't when the first night comes around.

If you need some kind of upgrade there to buy, what about an upgrade for medic that considerably slows the progression of infection in your units within a radius instead? In exchange for a chunk of cash, you can delay medevac if you're doing something really crucial.

[StupidTonyTucker]

So the ideas are great but I think we need to think about this from a different angle as well. If you ask me, Money is an odd concept over actually resources such as Oil and Ammo and if we apply realism to this game, Which I think we should. Wouldn't be more Ideal if the player has his own stages instead of the other way around?

For example if the player knew Chelsey is somewhere in the northern section of town. Then we should focus on Stage one which would be Evac and Isolate which is what FEMA would do IRL. After all Non-infected Civilians are evacuated safely then they would go into stage two which would be Control and contain and which we would go into the infected zone and attempt to push back the infected and do as much damage as possible without major risk or pushing the infection outside of the zone of containment and then the last step would be cleanup. Cleanup would push the player to kill off any remaining infected and ensure the city is safe.

( Something to consider ) I also feel if the player is close to losing, The " President or Secretary of Defense could offer to firebomb the city or if the player loses the city gets nuked or something. Another item I would bring up is shrinking the zones and adding more zones in general and offering Manpower,Ammo and fuel instead of just money.

In game items to consider as well - Special solders that can be used to Scan civilians who are trying to Evacuate. I also think before the player gets started he should plan an Evac zone for Stage one as previously mentioned. I think it would be cool to add Holding Cells that can house more then one person. The movie " The Crazies" did a lot of research on What FEMA would do in a similar instance like this however the difference was Bio-terrorism caused that to happen. But I think that movie could give a great insight to how we could shape this game and how Quarantine would actually work and look like.

[Dark the Great]

This is coming next week. Prepare your hardhats to give feedback!