Dead State Rebalance Plan

[Zombra]

In my review of Dead State, I mentioned that "I've thought about it a lot. This review isn't the right place for it, but in the comment thread below I will venture my armchair design suggestions to better balance the game." On reflection, I decided to post it in its own thread to keep possible discussion focused on the rebalance and not the review.

DoubleBear, I hope you're out there

Zombra's Quick & Dirty Rebalance Plan for Dead State

• Triple (or at least double) food consumption rates. Make it impossible to save everyone and feed them all without rationing.
  
• Make the baseline food consumption for horses higher than for humans. Increase it even more when they are taken into the field.
• Cut the shelter morale bonus from basic luxury items in half.
• Nerf the hell out of armor. Make it impossible to resist 100% damage from any successful attack. Even a small amount of damage from every hit will greatly change the complexion of combat.
• Allow a small chance of viral infection from every single zombie hit, not just to knocked out characters. Maybe a 1 in 500 chance for every point of damage done (and remember, every hit should do at least 1 point of damage).
• Make the virus take two days to manifest symptoms from these incidental hits.
• Double costs for all skill ranks.
• Enable a "semi-ironman" option where the player has one rolling autosave, and can only hardsave the game at the shelter upon ending the game day, as was discussed early in development.

Note: the preceding is intended not as a comprehensive, professional design, but as a starting point for real game designers to work from. Nevertheless, I believe that if these ideas were implemented as written with no other changes, Dead State would come into its own, both as a reflection of the bleak, arbitrary, and pessimistic world of the classic Romero films, and as a challenging apocalypse survival game with tough choices.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

That all sounds pretty good. It would make it a hell of a lot harder of course, but since the majority of Dead State ends up being meat and potatoes scavenging and base management anyway then having some NPCs die and/or turning them away instead of letting them join the shelter wouldn't really be a bad thing. Only real thing I could think to add would be maybe lessen the number of generic "Looter" NPCs on the maps, so your encounters with hostile humans are more intentional. With reduced armor the number of random looters hiding in buildings with shotguns and shit could get really annoying. When you're up against the Coyotes base or something then you know what you're getting in to and can plan accordingly, not so much when an entire map is zombies except for the freezer of the burger joint which is an optional building on that map and has a dude with a shotgun in it.

Largely agree though. After the first hump it gets way too easy and you lose the feeling of desperately scavenging.

 

[Zombra]

Yeah. There're so many dialogue options like, "Gee, I don't know if we can afford to feed you," when that's never, ever the case. So much of the game just doesn't make sense unless food is actually scarce.

And I'm OK with the occasional surprise death by looter. But I don't mean for armor to become worthless - you should still be able to survive a couple of shots. Just not 50.

 

[Metro]

Note: the preceding is intended not as a comprehensive, professional design, but as a starting point for real game designers to work from.

 

[Zombra]

lol, not what I meant Metro

 

[Tzaero]

Clearly Sawyer is only man qualified for the task, gotta lure him away from obsidian though.

 

[Western]

• Triple (or at least double) food consumption rates. Make it impossible to save everyone and feed them all without rationing.

Crisis event potential there

Antonio: I think God would want us to survive. Strive to live.
Gustavo: At all costs?
Antonio: No. I mean, we shouldn't murder innocents to live.
Gustavo: And what about our innocence? What's going to become of our innocence if we survive as cannibals?

 

[mastroego]

Hmmm.
Hmmm-hhmmm-hmmm.

Didn't even know about this game. I'm intrigued.
IS a rebalance patch coming?

 

[Zombra]

Hmmm.
Hmmm-hhmmm-hmmm.
Didn't even know about this game. I'm intrigued.

Glad to help spread the word

IS a rebalance patch coming?

Check out the review discussion thread. This post >>>>>>>>>

 

[Spockrock]

Clearly Sawyer is only man qualified for the task, gotta lure him away from obsidian though.

not necessarily, he's an experienced modder could do it in his spare time

 

[mastroego]

Oh, darn so no rebalance yet.
Too bad, I could have used a game to play right now...

And I hope this Sawyer thing is a joke.
God, that face.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Joke? JOKE? Sawyer does not comprehend "Joke". Posts should remain diverse in topic but equally valuable in content.

 

[Mexi]

Not just that, they need more shelter meetings and overall dialogue. Everyone in the shelter doesn't respond to the world or anything. They're just statues. This makes the end-game super boring when everything is scavenged. Also, they need to maybe add some dialogue if you take people out scavenging with you.

They also need to make the horses use more food if you take them out. Make it balanced to where you have to actually rely more on the car or something.

 

[Ninjerk]

Joke? JOKE? Sawyer does not comprehend "Joke". Posts should remain diverse in topic but equally valuable in content.

Humor is an artifact of helplessness and a waste of resources.

 

[Zombra]

Not just that, they need more shelter meetings and overall dialogue. Everyone in the shelter doesn't respond to the world or anything. They're just statues. This makes the end-game super boring when everything is scavenged. Also, they need to maybe add some dialogue if you take people out scavenging with you.

Obviously, the more dialogue, the better, but this is hardly a realistic request. Even if there was 3x as much dialogue, you could still complain that "they're just statues". There is already a ton of dialogue in the game. And I'm sure my Plan would generate plenty of conversations with food running out and people getting infected, without DoubleBear having to write a single new line.

They also need to make the horses use more food if you take them out. Make it balanced to where you have to actually rely more on the car or something.

Good suggestion. I think horses need to use more food period - very silly that they use up less than a human - but it would also be good for them to have a further downside when used. It wouldn't even need to be that much more to feel like more of a tradeoff.

Fine tuning the horses is really more of a B-list concern though.

 

[imweasel]

Triple (or at least double) food consumption rates. Make it impossible to save everyone and feed them all without rationing.

Cut the shelter morale bonus from basic luxury items in half.

I enjoyed scavenging at the beginning of the game, but it becomes a pretty dull snoozefest after a while, because repeatedly dragging shitloads of food and other items back to your base is not fun. Tripling food consumption would mean that you have to completely scavenge practically every map in the game to survive, which would just make things worse IMO. I am not even sure there is enough food in the game to support such a high comsumption rate.

IMHO the food consumption rate should be slightly lowered and food should be a lot rarer.

Allow a small chance of viral infection from every single zombie hit, not just to knocked out characters. Maybe a 1 in 500 chance for every point of damage done (and remember, every hit should do at least 1 point of damage).

Zombies are really nothing more than a tedious nuisance and not dangerous at all. They are just complete pushovers throughout the game. Repeatedly running up behind Zombies and bonking them over the head with a baseball bat is how I took care of them.

Your suggestion would help, but not very much i'm afraid. Zombie encounters need to scale better like human encounters.

 

[Zombra]

Triple (or at least double) food consumption rates. Make it impossible to save everyone and feed them all without rationing.

I enjoyed scavenging at the beginning of the game, but it becomes a pretty dull snoozefest after a while, because repeatedly dragging shitloads of food and other items back to your base is not fun. Tripling food consumption would mean that you have to completely scavenge practically every map in the game to survive, which would just make things worse IMO. I am not even sure there is enough food in the game to support such a high comsumption rate.

There probably isn't if you have a ton of people at the shelter; that's the point. It needs to get to where you have to either call for harsh rationing, or start eating rats and bugs, or kick some people out.

IMHO the food consumption rate should be slightly lowered and food should be a lot rarer.

That would work too, but would necessitate redesigning every single map in the game. Not gonna happen. Boosting the consumption rate can be done with the flip of a single switch.

Allow a small chance of viral infection from every single zombie hit, not just to knocked out characters. Maybe a 1 in 500 chance for every point of damage done (and remember, every hit should do at least 1 point of damage).

Zombies are really nothing more than a tedious nuisance and not dangerous at all. They are just complete pushovers throughout the game. Repeatedly running up behind Zombies and bonking them over the head with a baseball bat is how I took care of them.
Your suggestion would help, but not very much i'm afraid. Zombie encounters need to scale better like human encounters.

The sneak and bonk works well for a lot of the game (which I think is fine), but not all of it. In crowded areas they got a lot of attacks in on me - I just didn't really notice because they all bounced off my armor. If armor was nerfed so that every hit did at least a small amount of damage, a minute infection chance per hit times lots of little hits would = at least a few people actually getting infected over the course of the game. Maybe 1 in 500 would be too lenient; it's just a number I kind of threw out there. Think about if every single zombie hit caused infection, now think about how it is now where no zombie hits cause infection. There's a middle ground in there somewhere that the game should be tuned for.

I don't think zombies need to be tuned way tougher - that would defeat the conceit of the game. But the constant low level threat of infection should always be there.

Your analysis is appreciated.

 

[Morkar Left]

I would prefer a mechanic that gives zombies a swarming bonus in melee. If you are surrounded by them, they should have increased attacking chances and/or chances to take you down / grabble you as well as higher damage. A char getting surrounded or nearly surrounded by them should knock some panic into the players mind.
And I wouldn't give a percentage chance to get infected to every wound, especially if you want to switch to a percentage min. damage model. But it would be kind of cool if the inflicted damage would a have a high cance (25%) of infection when they take a char down while grabbling him.

 

[Pony King]

The problem with talking about zombie infection and swarming bonuses, is that it is never a problem if the player manages the game correctly. When I played, I almost only ever fought multiple zombies if I got bored of stealth-bonking them.
What the game really needs is a well-developed mechanic for swarming the player with zombies when the player wants to take risks.

I also think that the horses are more than a b-list priority. The horses are strictly superior to the car since they not only use less resources, but also allow you to visit even far away scavenging sites multiple times a day. If you nerf them you'll significantly nerf the players ability to scavenge.

An actual b-list priority would be re-balancing the car, gas seems far too necessary to waste.

• Cut the shelter morale bonus from basic luxury items in half.

Did anybody really understand how this actually worked? The only thing I know, is that people started leaving the shelter when I ran out of gas, even though the morale reported at the end-of-day screen still was significantly positive. I have a suspicion that it is balanced, in the sense that it keeps people happy when you're bringing in stuff, but they still quickly turn on you when things start going sour. Even if you have thousand of morale points.

Beyond that I agree with the OP and would only add the necessity of breaking the scavenging tedium which currently gate the actually fun parts of the game. Think of it as a necessary 'fun' re-balancing.

 

[Morkar Left]

The problem with talking about zombie infection and swarming bonuses, is that it is never a problem if the player manages the game correctly.

I think there should be a reward for being careful. And it's not always possible in buildings. But the line of sight for enemies seems indeed broken. I can run and murder unnoticed for the eyes of zombies and even living people. There should be a more reactive line of sight and at least a part of zombies should aimlessly shuffle around to bring in more variety and tension into sneaking up on them.

 

[Zombra]

I would prefer a mechanic that gives zombies a swarming bonus in melee. If you are surrounded by them, they should have increased attacking chances and/or chances to take you down / grabble you as well as higher damage. A char getting surrounded or nearly surrounded by them should knock some panic into the players mind.

The problem with talking about zombie infection and swarming bonuses, is that it is never a problem if the player manages the game correctly.

You're both right. Swarming bonuses would definitely be a good idea ... BUT. That should not be the only way for characters to get infected. It broadcasts too much to the player. "A zombie is attacking you! Now TWO zombies are attacking you! You better move! Uh oh! Now it's FOUR! Hurry up and help that guy! Oh no! They knocked him down! They might infect him! Only one turn left to save him! Yikes! He's infected!" This is completely untrue to the arbitrary nature of the genre. Usually, in the movies and so forth, someone who gets surrounded simply gets killed. Infection happens when one lone zombie lurches out of nowhere with a surprise bite. This is why the "tiny chance on every hit" is necessary: to keep the fear constant and to keep direct control of the infection out of the player's hands. That's also the reason for the proposed two-day remission: so that the player can't immediately save-scum when the little icon pops up. Also, this leads to the dramatic scene of "I think when that zombie came from behind the dumpster and scraped me, something got into my bloodstream!"

I also think that the horses are more than a b-list priority. The horses are strictly superior to the car since they not only use less resources, but also allow you to visit even far away scavenging sites multiple times a day. If you nerf them you'll significantly nerf the players ability to scavenge.

Yeah, your post and a few others in the thread have convinced me that horses are a major tool in the game. I'll add another bullet point to the OP.

* Cut the shelter morale bonus from basic luxury items in half.

Did anybody really understand how this actually worked? The only thing I know, is that people started leaving the shelter when I ran out of gas, even though the morale reported at the end-of-day screen still was significantly positive. I have a suspicion that it is balanced, in the sense that it keeps people happy when you're bringing in stuff, but they still quickly turn on you when things start going sour. Even if you have thousand of morale points.

I didn't really understand it, no. My impression is that people would get upset when stuff wasn't coming in, regardless of the end-of-day Morale Number. Whatever that mechanism is, I suppose it's fine. I just found it way too easy to keep the Morale Number climbing and climbing every day.

 

[Emily]

The game is broken on a fundamental level with zombies being non-threatening main enemy that is both annoying to deal with and totally pointless since the risk is close to zero.

They either need to
-make zombies 10 times more in numbers, make infections on slightest bite, nerf Armour to the ground
-introduce evolving zombies, zombie varieties, etc. Nerf Armour to the ground

This is a first step that would require changing the whole game pretty much so i doubt it is feesable.

 

[Kem0sabe]

The game is broken on a fundamental level with zombies being non-threatening main enemy that is both annoying to deal with and totally pointless since the risk is close to zero.

They either need to
-make zombies 10 times more in numbers, make infections on slightest bite, nerf Armour to the ground
-introduce evolving zombies, zombie varieties, etc. Nerf Armour to the ground

This is a first step that would require changing the whole game pretty much so i doubt it is feesable.

I agree, the game needs so much more than a simple balance patch for the combat, some of the major issues:

1. Lack of content for the duration of the game;
2. Lack of npc interaction outside of the shelter;
3. Lack of variety of maps;
4. Lack of enemy variety;
5. AI being trivial;

 

[Elhoim]

Thanks! We will definitely take a look at many of these issues.

 

[Morkar Left]

That's also the reason for the proposed two-day remission: so that the player can't immediately save-scum when the little icon pops up. Also, this leads to the dramatic scene of "I think when that zombie came from behind the dumpster and scraped me, something got into my bloodstream!"

I agree here. The infection shouldn't be obvious right from the start or otherwise you will ALWAYS reload if you aren't force yourself to an pure ironman mode.