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Review RPG Codex Review: Dead State

Lhynn

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This thread is pretty cool. A good selection of trolls, dissenters, and what I can only assume to be alts of Zombra and infinitron.

It's a shame the game isn't good.
Game is good, and has the potential to be great, half the codexers here have a problem with the setting, the other half have a problem with the math behind the combat and the survival aspect. While theres nothing you can do about the first one, the second one should be easy to fix for a much better experience.
Other than that, the game is overly ambitious, im surprised its as stable as it is.
 

Absalom

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To be fair, if we didn't give them a good review, Annie Mitsoda would have deleted the website :troll:
 
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Review said:
Combat: Well-designed. Too easy.

It is not well designed if it is too easy. It is not simply a matter of being easy either. It is full of exploits in an already static and dead world and even the manual tells you to exploit the poor design of the game. Please keep shitposters* from writing reviews the next time.

It is still the kind of game I prefer to play and manage to enjoy to some extent over numerous others but it has got holes all over the place. I believe in the talent and the intentions behind the game for a better follow-up, though.


*: I only assume Zombra must be one.
 

Lhynn

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I think its p. clear that hes refering to combat system and encounter design as two separate things. And even in combat system hes saying that the basics of it are pretty solid, but some numbers need tweaking, its not broken or bad or anything.
 
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The basics are full of exploits even the manual tells you to take advantage of and the numbers need tweaking; those are the two halves of the system with problems before taking encounter design into account. Pretty much the opposite of "well designed".

I will settle on "flawed but otherwise enjoyable" system, which what it really is.

It is still far too hack & slashy for a zombie apoc survival game. There is practically no options for crowd control or evasion which is a big problem right in the foundation, in my opinion.
 
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Zombra

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Thanks for writing the review! There will be a balance patch, and the promised ironman mode.
Glad to do it! I had fun.

Will that be the "semi-ironman" where you can still hardsave once a day? That's the one I'm hoping for. In a game of this type, I don't like either extreme of the savegame spectrum.
 

Zombra

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Trash joelofdeath Dicksmoker agris lightbane <3sRichardSimmons HiddenX leferd tindrli PhantasmaNL Lurker King GloomFrost Lhynn Multi-headed Cow Western mastroego imweasel Morkar Pony King Bratislav Kem0sabe

Some of you guys were interested in whether or not a balance patch is coming. I wanted to alert you that Elhoim (DoubleBear / Iron Tower dev) spoke up:

There will be a balance patch, and the promised ironman mode.

So it's officially in the works ... and this is his comment from the Dead State Rebalance thread:

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

I'm looking forward to seeing what they come up with.
 

cruelio

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Are you seriously defending the stealth and encounters design in the game? You can have a map filled with zombies and kill them off one by one with a single character, from behind without the mobs next to it noticing, rinse and repeat ad nauseum. It's not stealth, it's exploiting a broken system.
Really? You don't think it was intentional that you could sneak around and bust heads one by one? Just because you don't press a modifier key to do the stupid crouch-walk that popamolers associate with stealth doesn't mean it's not stealth.

And no, you can't succeed at that on a map "filled with zombies". When they're close enough and/or facing you, they will notice you. Often you can get away with it, sometimes you can't, and occasionally it's a middle ground where you have to reallllly think about it if you're going to make it work. There is a good deal of dynamic tension: will they notice me or not? And as I said in the review, the encounter design really does vary a lot across the game. Sure, there are a lot of zones with similar encounter design: chalk that up to there being so many maps.


D:OS combat is fun, for a while. Is DS combat ever fun?
The combat is fun in the beginning, when you don’t have a good gear and is still learning all the details of the combat system. You can die. Afterwards, most battles are piece of cake and only seven or eight big battles are epic. The armor system is completely unbalanced, but it is fixable.
Yep. The reason combat gets dull is not because of the system; it's because of crap balance. I had the same experience as LK. Great fun in the beginning, then bored.

You can go entire maps with like 50+ zombies on them (I'm thinking e.g. the hospital, maps that are packed with them) where you can kill the majority of zombies by bonking them on the head and at most only aggro maybe 3-5 OCCASIONALLY. And yet the worst part is zombies are such a non threat and you solve your scarcity problems so quicky that in the end its actually better to just shoot them all and drag the whole map to you, because at least doing that is slightly less tedious.

And this game was in development/early access and then released for how long with these issues, that still aren't resolved, and you expect them to finally get their heads out of their asses AND add bonus content that they've promised? Really?
 

cruelio

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This thread is pretty cool. A good selection of trolls, dissenters, and what I can only assume to be alts of Zombra and infinitron.

It's a shame the game isn't good.
Game is good, and has the potential to be great, half the codexers here have a problem with the setting, the other half have a problem with the math behind the combat and the survival aspect. While theres nothing you can do about the first one, the second one should be easy to fix for a much better experience.
Other than that, the game is overly ambitious, im surprised its as stable as it is.

Seriously, why do people think this will be "easy to fix." The game has been fucked up, with people complaining about these issues in early access, for how long now? They are unable or unwilling to fix their fucked up game. This isn't just shifting some numbers, these are fundamental flaws that would require extensive testing to deal with that SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE WHILE IT WAS IN BETA/EARLY ACCESS and not after release.
 

Overboard

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Seriously, why do people think this will be "easy to fix." The game has been fucked up, with people complaining about these issues in early access, for how long now? They are unable or unwilling to fix their fucked up game. This isn't just shifting some numbers, these are fundamental flaws that would require extensive testing to deal with that SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE WHILE IT WAS IN BETA/EARLY ACCESS and not after release.

Listen shitlord, at what point did they tell any consumer ever it is super okay to threaten any creator if their wishes are not EXACTLY catered to?
 

Zombra

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You can go entire maps with like 50+ zombies on them (I'm thinking e.g. the hospital, maps that are packed with them) where you can kill the majority of zombies by bonking them on the head and at most only aggro maybe 3-5 OCCASIONALLY.
Would you be happier if a whole zone of 50+ zombies all aggroed on you at once, and there was nothing you could do about it?

And yet the worst part is zombies are such a non threat and you solve your scarcity problems so quicky that in the end its actually better to just shoot them all and drag the whole map to you, because at least doing that is slightly less tedious.
Wait ... are you saying this game has bad balance? Are you sure?


And this game was in development/early access and then released for how long with these issues, that still aren't resolved, and you expect them to finally get their heads out of their asses AND add bonus content that they've promised? Really?
Huh? Who said anything about bonus content? I said that fixing the balance is a good idea, and that they probably will because that would be smart of them ... and lo and behold, one of the devs just said that a balance patch is indeed in the works. Maybe he's flat out lying, but I don't see any sense in that. And frankly I know him better than I know you, and from what I can tell, he has his head screwed on a little straighter than yours. No offense, looking forward to future posts from you that prove my assumption wrong.

Seriously, why do people think this will be "easy to fix." The game has been fucked up, with people complaining about these issues in early access, for how long now?
You tell me; I haven't been following their forums. Maybe you can also tell me whether or not the devs were busy doing the important stuff like laying a stable foundation for the game, its engine, and its systems, instead of worrying about balance, which actually is about shifting numbers - and is the last thing smart developers worry about. It's important, but meaningless if your game doesn't work at all.

They are unable or unwilling to fix their fucked up game. This isn't just shifting some numbers, these are fundamental flaws that would require extensive testing to deal with that SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE WHILE IT WAS IN BETA/EARLY ACCESS and not after release.
What are the 'fundamental flaws', exactly? That stealth works if you play it smart? Horrible! Or do you mean the bad balance that they're not willing to fix (except they're working on a rebalance)?


Are you saying the game was released too early? And that it would be better to play if combat balance was better? And that there is functional stealth gameplay as well as straight up combat gameplay? With sensitivity and sophistication like that, you should think about writing a review.
 

Kem0sabe

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Maybe you can also tell me whether or not the devs were busy doing the important stuff like laying a stable foundation for the game, its engine, and its systems, instead of worrying about balance, which actually is about shifting numbers - and is the last thing smart developers worry about. It's important, but meaningless if your game doesn't work at all.

:notsureifserious:
 

cruelio

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You can go entire maps with like 50+ zombies on them (I'm thinking e.g. the hospital, maps that are packed with them) where you can kill the majority of zombies by bonking them on the head and at most only aggro maybe 3-5 OCCASIONALLY.
Would you be happier if a whole zone of 50+ zombies all aggroed on you at once, and there was nothing you could do about it?

And yet the worst part is zombies are such a non threat and you solve your scarcity problems so quicky that in the end its actually better to just shoot them all and drag the whole map to you, because at least doing that is slightly less tedious.
Wait ... are you saying this game has bad balance? Are you sure?


And this game was in development/early access and then released for how long with these issues, that still aren't resolved, and you expect them to finally get their heads out of their asses AND add bonus content that they've promised? Really?
Huh? Who said anything about bonus content? I said that fixing the balance is a good idea, and that they probably will because that would be smart of them ... and lo and behold, one of the devs just said that a balance patch is indeed in the works. Maybe he's flat out lying, but I don't see any sense in that. And frankly I know him better than I know you, and from what I can tell, he has his head screwed on a little straighter than yours. No offense, looking forward to future posts from you that prove my assumption wrong.

Seriously, why do people think this will be "easy to fix." The game has been fucked up, with people complaining about these issues in early access, for how long now?
You tell me; I haven't been following their forums. Maybe you can also tell me whether or not the devs were busy doing the important stuff like laying a stable foundation for the game, its engine, and its systems, instead of worrying about balance, which actually is about shifting numbers - and is the last thing smart developers worry about. It's important, but meaningless if your game doesn't work at all.

They are unable or unwilling to fix their fucked up game. This isn't just shifting some numbers, these are fundamental flaws that would require extensive testing to deal with that SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE WHILE IT WAS IN BETA/EARLY ACCESS and not after release.
What are the 'fundamental flaws', exactly? That stealth works if you play it smart? Horrible! Or do you mean the bad balance that they're not willing to fix (except they're working on a rebalance)?


Are you saying the game was released too early? And that it would be better to play if combat balance was better? And that there is functional stealth gameplay as well as straight up combat gameplay? With sensitivity and sophistication like that, you should think about writing a review.

Are you really going to do the pick apart a post line by line thing lmao

1. You know what I would say there's a reasonable middle ground between "I can do a map with a hundred zombies by bonking them on the head over a tedious boring threat-free half an hour of my life" and "a whole zone of 50+ zombies all aggroed on you at once, and there was nothing you could do about it" but this game would actually be improved if every single zombie just instantly psychically aggroed on you because then they would actually be a threat. Well not really since even at the start of the game you can just stand in a doorway and bonk them on the head while a massive crowd of 50+ zombies waits their turn out side but still. I eagerly anticipate the balance patch that will fix the concept of "one tile choke points."

2. DUR

3. The developers, who have promised more content while also fixing the game. Will believe when see.

4. I don't care if he's lying or if he really believes it. They shipped this game and charged people money for it and then had their chance in the most crucial period after and blew it. I have no reason to believe that whatever their intentions are they are even capable of fixing this game given how they have already performed. In fact, I am in a better position to judge the odds of this since its based only on how they have already performed so far and not on personal acquaintance, which puts your abysmal review in much better context.

5. I can tell you they have not been doing "important stuff like laying a stable foundation for the game, its engine, and its systems" because years of development and beta and early access have happened and they still have not accomplished any of these goals and now they're going to add balance to it too? Ok, I will believe it when Jesus takes over the studio and lends his divine skills to them.

6. List of fundamental flaws in this game:

- Resource management you don't have to care about
- Morale system that is trivialized by maxing two skills
- Majority of skills are useless
- Abysmal UI
- Insane amount of bugs that remain bugged even after "fixed" in patches AFTER release (will they ever get all those stairs or quest triggers fully working? stay tuned to find out!)
- Combat is broke

I could go on and on and elaborate on each issue but why should I? They released the game in the fucked up state it's in a charged money for it already. They have shown that for whathever reason, whether they're liars or over ambitious or starved of resources or incompetent or what fucking ever, they can't make a good game. Promise all the balance patches! These issues couldn't be resolved when they should have been, and now months after release when no one is buying the game anymore and has moved on to other things they're going to fix all this? Haha okay.
 
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Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
This thread:

Angry person: "HOW DARE YOU SAY THIS GAME IS WELL-DESIGNED, LOOK AT ALL THIS DERPY SHIT I WAS ABLE TO DO..."
Zombra: "Oh?"
Angry person: "...BECAUSE THE BALANCE WAS OFF."
Zombra: "..."

x 100
 

cruelio

Savant
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This thread:

Angry person: "HOW DARE YOU SAY THIS GAME IS WELL-DESIGNED, LOOK AT ALL THIS DERPY SHIT I WAS ABLE TO DO..."
Zombra: "Oh?"
Angry person: "...BECAUSE THE BALANCE WAS OFF."
Zombra: "..."

x 100

Who gives a fucking shit dude whether its "design" or "balance" or whatever you want to fucking call it. This game is a broken piece of shit whether its design or balance or whatever you want to call it, but you would never get even a hint of how fucked up it is from that abysmal review.
 

Infinitron

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You're talking about a review that concludes with "DON'T BUY THIS GAME".
 

Overboard

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You're talking about a review that concludes with "DON'T BUY THIS GAME".

Hey guys, that redhead right, she gives great head, does anal, asks you for mindblowing threesomes with her sister every other weekend, doesn't get clingy after you bone her, but don't fuck her alright? She's dull in bed.
 

zero29

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You're talking about a review that concludes with "DON'T BUY THIS GAME".
Hey guys, that redhead right, she gives great head, does anal, asks you for mindblowing threesomes with her sister every other weekend, doesn't get clingy after you bone her, but don't fuck her alright? She's dull in bed.
easy, just avoid fucking her in a bed. but wait, that wasn't meant literally, right? it's more like an analogy for something else, right? wonder what it is...
 

EG

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You can go entire maps with like 50+ zombies on them (I'm thinking e.g. the hospital, maps that are packed with them) where you can kill the majority of zombies by bonking them on the head and at most only aggro maybe 3-5 OCCASIONALLY.
Would you be happier if a whole zone of 50+ zombies all aggroed on you at once, and there was nothing you could do about it?
That's more or less what I foolishly hoped for back when the game was announced. Nothing like getting yourself into an impossible situation and suffering the consequences . . . Managed to do that with a sledge hammer and a shed in one of the park maps. It was perhaps the only time I managed to pull in half a dozen zombies in one action.

The hospital (Northern section section of the map?) was as simple as picking off anything outside of the line of sight of another. But I suspect that's due to it being a location you're supposed to visit early on, within the first week or two. The smaller hospital down South was a harder fight (more alert zombies), despite being a much smaller map. No where is this problem clearer than the other abandoned shelter, though (the one from which two strangers originate). Packed with zombies and you can just take them out one at a time, with little risk and massive reward in the first few days.

Of course, just bumping up the dB rating for the more "stealthy" weapons would be a quick fix to the "nearest-neighbor remains oblivious" issue Dead State currently has (on some maps). Perhaps bodies should make a sound when they fall, independent of the weapon.

Good review.
 

Zombra

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Are you really going to do the pick apart a post line by line thing lmao
Why not? It's easy and fun, especially when every line has a different dumb thing to trash :)

You know what I would say there's a reasonable middle ground between "I can do a map with a hundred zombies by bonking them on the head over a tedious boring threat-free half an hour of my life" and "a whole zone of 50+ zombies all aggroed on you at once, and there was nothing you could do about it"
Maybe like, "I can stealth most of the map but sometimes half a dozen zombies attack and I have to deal with them"? Exactly like you described?

but this game would actually be improved if every single zombie just instantly psychically aggroed on you because then they would actually be a threat.
What if armor got nerfed like I've been saying the whole time? Might zombies be a threat then?

I don't care if he's lying or if he really believes it. They shipped this game and charged people money for it and then had their chance in the most crucial period after and blew it. I have no reason to believe that whatever their intentions are they are even capable of fixing this game given how they have already performed. In fact, I am in a better position to judge the odds of this since its based only on how they have already performed so far and not on personal acquaintance, which puts your abysmal review in much better context.
We're not personally acquainted. I've just seen these guys post before and I know they've been around. They have more credibility with me than some angry kid who joined a month ago, has 18 posts, and doesn't make a lot of sense.


I can tell you they have not been doing "important stuff like laying a stable foundation for the game, its engine, and its systems" because years of development and beta and early access have happened and they still have not accomplished any of these goals and now they're going to add balance to it too? Ok, I will believe it when Jesus takes over the studio and lends his divine skills to them.
I'll believe it when it happens, and if it doesn't happen, I'll admit that you were right. How's that?

List of fundamental flaws in this game:
- Resource management you don't have to care about
aka poor balance

- Morale system that is trivialized by maxing two skills
aka poor balance

- Majority of skills are useless
Eh? That's not true at all. If it was, it would be down to ... you guessed it.

- Abysmal UI
Putting it too strongly, but otherwise agreed ... you'll notice I talked about it in the review.

- Insane amount of bugs that remain bugged even after "fixed" in patches AFTER release (will they ever get all those stairs or quest triggers fully working? stay tuned to find out!)
When was the last time you played the game? Stairs were fixed in December (unless you're still having problems with them that I didn't), and it looks like the To Do List was fixed in the last patch (I haven't played since then). As for all the scripting triggers ... it's a complicated RPG, and yes, it would be nice if there were no errors on release, but it's not surprising that some of that has to be fixed in post, or even that there are still some outstanding problems. The devs themselves have talked about how tough it is to get them all working, so why are you surprised?

- Combat is broke
Um yeah ... poor balance.

I could go on and on and elaborate on each issue but why should I?
You absolutely shouldn't. 90% of your complaints are covered in my review in the three word summary: Overall Balance: Crap. Thanks for the backup though.

They released the game in the fucked up state it's in a charged money for it already. They have shown that for whathever reason, whether they're liars or over ambitious or starved of resources or incompetent or what fucking ever, they can't make a good game. Promise all the balance patches! These issues couldn't be resolved when they should have been, and now months after release when no one is buying the game anymore and has moved on to other things they're going to fix all this? Haha okay.
Good point, no small studio has ever done post-release support, why would this one be different? I bet those three patches they already released that fix a bunch of stuff are just for show. :roll:
 
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PhantasmaNL

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You're talking about a review that concludes with "DON'T BUY THIS GAME".

Probably good advice, but i bought it anyway. Just to club a few unsuspecting zombies on the head and to check it out in its current state. Potential is there, but i will wait for the patches which make things more difficult (maybe even roguelike- which i usually hate but neo scavanger changed my perception of them).
 

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