[Suggestion: Gameplay additions]

Yeah, tbh I'd love to see more to melee at least.

 

Like, I can see the current combat being the baseline, but I think when you specialise in weapons, it should open up options for:

 

• Block (lose stamina instead of health based on the weapon. Prevents stun and infection. Block also slows you while blocking)
• Parry (Same as blocking, but timed. A successful parry allows for a fast follow up attack by attacking while parrying and you lose less stamina on a parry)
• Shove (Attacking while blocking (without a parry) will simply shove enemies back. Shove power depends on the weapon)
• Backstab (Weapons have a backstab modifier as a lesser version of the sneak modifier. Any attacks from behind that aren't sneak attacks use the backstab modifier instead. Backstab also works if a zombie is distracted, e.g. on fire, taking hits, knocked down, etc)
• Finisher (An attack you can use on knocked down zombies at a low enough health to finish them)
• Special (Give each weapon type a special attack that takes extra stamina. Wide knocking swing on sledge, shoving stab on knives, specifically electrified baton, charge on spear, charged up swing on bats, etc)

 

Could also open up some dodge options while blocking, instead of just running

[7th Day Suggestions]

I like the game, but my issue is, I can get bored when the survival aspect is all taken care of. You become self-sufficient quite quickly.

Also, things like Infestations seem like way better challenges than base defense, since it doesn't need to be balanced around cheese designs.

 

I'm also all for choose-your-own difficulty kind of thing, but the game needs those available. Another thing the infestations (and building Tiers in general) do.

 

If I had to change the game in some way, it'd be fundamentally changing how the 7th day works. Change it to be a selection of survival issues each 7th day.

 

Each 7th day, the world presents a challenge, either instant, or ongoing, e.g.:

 

• Feral Zombies (Same as now)
• Weather
  • Deep Freeze
    • Very cold weather. Change the system to have ramping cold mechanics delayed or reversed by clothing, shelter and heat sources
    • Lasts up til the next 7th day
    • Crops stop growing or can die in this time
    • Water sources freeze
    • Increase in wolves
  • Storm
    • Constant rain and clouds. Loud.
    • Acts as a permanent night
    • Lasts up til the next 7th day
    • Cold due to wetness, but nothing like Deep Freeze
  • Heatwave
    • Extreme heat. Change the system to have ramping heat mechanics delayed or reversed by clothing, shelter and water sources
    • Lasts up til the next 7th day
    • Crop system changed to require water. More water needed in this event
    • Being in exposed sun can ramp up the effects quite quickly
    • Add a food spoilage system for anything not canned. This event speeds up that spoilage
    • Increase in vultures
  • Fallout
    • A wave of nuclear fallout passes over the map over the 7 days.
    • You need to bunker down while it passes or have the gear to survive it
    • After passing it, leaves a far larger percentage of zombies radiated for the remaining days
    • The wave is large enough that it takes a day to pass over any single area of the map
• Raiders
  • I know we're aiming for them. But an event for 7th day around them would be good. For 7 days they launch attacks at various times
  • Unlike zombies, their main aim is attacking your base and raiding your stash, whether you're there or not
  • You get a warning within a couple of hours of attacks
  • After half the days have passed, their camp is revealed is you want to try to stop them at the source
    • The camp can be a literal camp somewhere
    • Or, a POI with raider spawns replacing zombies
    • The POI can be found beforehand, but isn't revealed 
• Feral Fauna
  • All animals are zombiefied for the next 7 days
  • Animals no longer attack zombies for this period, only players
  • Packs of various animals wander the world
  • This also includes flocks of birds
  • Animals are far more aggressive in this period and have a larger aggro range
• Zombie Mutation
  • For 7 days, zombies get a mutator, e.g.
    • Head Shots - only head shots hurt them ( can still take off limbs)
    • Bullet Resistant - less damage from bullets
    • Tough - Bonus health
    • Burning - always on fire, but don't take damage from it
    • etc.
  • These mods could be configured to go away on the 7th day, or stack and fall off
    • e.g. if you set it to a 3 stack, the zombies retain the latest 3 buffs they've gotten from these events
    • You could make it so max stacks increase every X days to have a ramping challenge

 

Basically just things like this that up the survival aspect. When I say "7th day", I am referring to whatever the player sets it to, not necessarily 7th. Then they could enable or disable these events in options too. So you could, for instance, have a permanent Deep Freeze world, or a Raider world, or Wild World, etc.

For me, the zombie attacks on the 7th day are the least interesting aspect of 7 days to die at the moment

 

[Now that You have played Alpha 19, What do you like or dislike?]

14 hours ago, Forgotten Memes said:

I was thinking the way to do this is on a biome level.  The forest biome is Game Stage +0.  Desert and Winter are GS +20.  Burnt is ((GS + 40) x 1.1) and wastland is ((GS +60) X1.2)).  That would allow the player to dynamically manage their risk in a way that's intuitive.   As it stands there is never a reason to go outside of the forest except for oil shale.

Those Biomes definitely need something. Maybe a higher chance of certain loot types too.

[Now that You have played Alpha 19, What do you like or dislike?]

41 minutes ago, Scyris said:

The loot system needs a overhaul again...

Adding this here:

Self advertising, I know. But the extra tiers would let lower tiers be far less valuable beyond their base resource cost, lower the value of tier 6 and make selling the items themselves more of a wrench, as they are always going to be part of a larger crafting chain.

[Now that You have played Alpha 19, What do you like or dislike?]

41 minutes ago, meganoth said:

Yes, for stealth that would be preferable. We'll have to see how they implement it, an icon that immediately shows key locations would be a whimpy half-solution, icons that only show up if you are near to the key would be much better. But I'm sure we will hear lots of players complain that they missed the icon and had to backtrack through the whole factory again.

 

I also would be ok with keys on zombies though if you got an icon or some other indication which one has the key. We are not talking about a pacifist playthrough, just a stealthy one.

 

I feel like just readable notes helps this. Even without a HUD value. It'd just mean they could miss things and never know they missed anything, so no backtracking

[Now that You have played Alpha 19, What do you like or dislike?]

2 minutes ago, meganoth said:

It is difficult for the game to know about "rooms", it already is difficult for the game to find out if you are "inside" or "outside".

 

That loot score sounds very gamey.  Sorry, I would much prefer the keys, they don't seem out of place. And they can be implemented with very little additional code (especially if they store keys in boxes). And low implementation effort counts for much in this phase of the development.

 

 

 

Maybe at least in containers only then? To preserve the idea of stealth characters not needing to kill?

[Now that You have played Alpha 19, What do you like or dislike?]

Anyway,

PROS

- I actually have the music on for once. Definite pro

- I like the scaled progression. One thing that stops me playing is simply running out of new content, this extends that (instead of having the best gun and a concrete base with electricity on day 7)

- I like injuries more now, and the full health protection (NOTE: Physician should reduce heal time on themselves or on others they heal. This would be a SIGNIFICANT reason to take the skill, especially with 40 minute heal times on some injuries)

- Love the new textures

- Lighting is great

- Entry animations on zombies, yes yes yes

 

CONS

- I have no reason to leave town. The trader is here, everything I need is here. It's day 16 and I'm almost maxed out on gear and weapons. I think the game needs some sort of world events (encroaching radiation, radiation storms, etc) that make you move around. The game needs more end-game advancement that takes you out into the world. Basically the threats need to scale up in a way that they push you to new areas, or maybe places further away offer better loot or unlock more perks.

- Food and Water is still a bit dull. I think harder to craft meals need to offer some longer term protection as well as instant food. i.e. +50 food AND a 30 minute buff that reduces food loss by 75%. If a meal takes many different ingredients, it should be more valuable than just eating 5 grilled steaks.

- The trader's stock should be based on their biome. This doesn't seem to be the case right now, maybe it is, but it's not noticable. Also, their quests and stock should be based on how many traders you've reached. So you only get Tier 2 quests once you've met the second trader, 3 on the third, etc. and similar for loot. Again, more reason to travel, even if you then return home. It could even be the case that the next trader exclusively has better quests and items, but you'd eventually get a trade mission back to your original trader who then gets bumped up.

- Snow Zombies. They suck and they make the biome suck to stay in. Not even that they're hard, just that they're everywhere and there's no variation in snow zombies. Like, 50% of the snow biome is frozen lumberjacks.

- Give living in the harsher Biomes a more clear benefit, even if it's just a stacking buff while in that biome that increases over time. Maybe as simple as an XP buff for tackling a harsher environment or a buff to a specific stat (Fortitude in snow for example).

[Now that You have played Alpha 19, What do you like or dislike?]

On 7/6/2020 at 2:45 PM, meganoth said:

It isn't a bad idea. One flaw though is that potentially a stealth player could go non-cheesingly through the poi with very few kills and be punished for that. One idea the devs are considering at the moment is one (or more?) keys you find on random zombies or in random locations in the POI, which sounds at least for the stealth player to be a somewhat better solution.

 

Rather than keys, could this not track the stealth itself?

I'm not sure how in depth the game can be in this sense, but like can it see how many rooms have been entered? How many of the spawned zombies you have been close enough to for a detection check and avoided, etc. 

 

If it's good enough, entering these POIs could even give some HUD info on the "Loot Score" for the building, and you see it going up as you progress through either killing or avoiding combat.

 

I think if any keys were involved, I'd like it to be purely loot found in containers within the POI. Like "Factory Blueprints" in a factory or "Diary" in a home, and reading them in that POI increased the Loot Score on your HUD (maybe the score can exceed 100%).