Less wimpy winter!

[EkarusRyndren]

Nah, you should always be able to recover from a mistake- no one wants to get to winter only to die because they let themselves get hungry. Stupid mistakes should hurt, not kill.

Well by that logic catching the flu and being unable to get food between the sleep/recover cycle shouldn’t be a death sentence XD I can’t help but agree that a mistake before winter be deadly, sort of a hump to get over, or even a challenge for some?

[GrizzlyAdamz]

I don’t know the reference to flu, so I’m probably sticking my foot in my mouth, but wouldn’t that only afflict brand-spanking-new survivors? I can’t imagine anyone not making a stockpile of non-perishables.

Vs a scavving trip that kills you because you stayed out a bit too late and it snowballed (pun) from there. It sounds like it would be a cheap, “surprise!” death- specially if the mechanics change only for winter. You’d have to learn from trial & error when the rules change, and couple that with having survived for 40+ days already & you’ll be instilling a lot of butthurt.

[kevin.granade]

Once winter is interesting enough for it to be worthwhile, we’ll make the time of year when the game starts adjustable, so you can start just before winter and learn the ropes.
Also, hard mode, game starts in the dead of winter.

[GrizzlyAdamz]

Also, death mode, game starts in the dead of winter.

FTFY

[EkarusRyndren]

I don’t know the reference to flu, so I’m probably sticking my foot in my mouth, but wouldn’t that only afflict brand-spanking-new survivors? I can’t imagine anyone not making a stockpile of non-perishables.

When you get the flu (Or even the common cold in some cases) it mostly means sitting around recovering, stuffing food in your mouth while you can then going back to sleep. I’ve also noticed that if you’re recovering from a bite wound it means not sleeping at all until it heals (Assuming you had to use Antibiotics) because the bite wound wakes you up, eventually resulting in quite a lot of sleep/eat/sleep again cycles assuming you survive the bite wound recovery process.

[vache]

snip… you get hit a few time by enemies and lose the insulating clothing - cold sets in more …snip

It’d be interesting if warmth and bash/cut armor were based off of armor damage to an extent, more reason to keep your gear in good shape and reinforce. Plus, realism. A shirt with holes in it probably provides less warmth than one without holes.

[Shoes]

[quote=“Sharklaser, post:45, topic:3372”]snip… you get hit a few time by enemies and lose the insulating clothing - cold sets in more …snip

It’d be interesting if warmth and bash/cut armor were based off of armor damage to an extent, more reason to keep your gear in good shape and reinforce. Plus, realism. A shirt with holes in it probably provides less warmth than one without holes.[/quote]

I remember trying to link clothing condition to warm, as it should be. I forget what stopped me from doing it. I should look again.

[keldoclock]

Also, hard mode, game starts in the dead of winter.

In Unreal World , the hardest game start is in November with a knife and a few articles of clothing, plus random injuries. Gameplay mainly consists of huddling around a fire, freezing, and starving. If you manage to delay your death until spring (by trading wooden crafts for tools/clothes, collecting berries, fishing, and hunting squirrels) you are pretty much good to go.

I wish there was some way for a game to be very hard for the entirety of the game, instead of starting hard and getting easy as problems are solved.

[kevin.granade]

It’s actually fairly easy in an open-world game like this, you just need to be careful to give warning signs so people can avoid the really dangerous areas until they’re ready for them.

A super obvious late game for cata is just a city center, there’d legitimately be groups of thousands of zombies wandering around.

Another one is fortified NPC areas.

Labs should have tougher resistance in general, as it is they’re a relatively safe area AND they have tons of stuff. If nothing else they should have zombified personell. Later on some labs might sill be operational, now that’d be a challenge

[vache]

I think the game needs more of the really rough enemies, and more enemies with ranged attacks. NPCs will probably fill those roles, but until then, we need more enemies like tripod bots and tankbots around. I have still never seen a tankbot in 4 versions. I actually had a thought for a depot or a shipyard or something full of metal shipping containers, and there’s a tripod bot outside blasting everything with fire, and you have to dodge in and out of the storage containers and take pot shots at it to kill it. Anyway, more security bots and stuff like that in the labs would be good. But this is all off topic to this discussion and should probably go to a new thread.

[John_Candlebury]

In my mind, the structure of labs need to be totally reworked, make them look like some actual high security facilities and make their interior rooms have more sense (they should be divided in sectors and have more corridors between them).

Bonus points if they have pitfalls gigantic open spaces, interior monorail systems pointless fail-unsafe mechanisms, crowbars, and the possibility of blowing up a the emergency nuke under the facility just for fun

[Birdie]

Dead of winter, hobo profession, max city size only.
Bring it on.

[Baltazargompka]

[quote=“John Candlebury, post:57, topic:3372”]In my mind, the structure of labs need to be totally reworked, make them look like some actual high security facilities and make their interior rooms have more sense (they should be divided in sectors and have more corridors between them).

Bonus points if they have pitfalls gigantic open spaces, interior monorail systems pointless fail-unsafe mechanisms, crowbars, and the possibility of blowing up a the emergency under the facility just for fun[/quote]

Currently laboratory is a large swatch of boredom, stuffed with rewarding resources. I think you should make them somewhat less spacious. Maybe even cramped, but threat-heavy.
An event or semi-event gameplay in laboratories would be just fine. For example, your character enters location - uber reinforced door shuts tightly behind your back, cutting escape route and you have to fight your way through.
Make them more diverse, both in layout and theme. Biological weapons faciliy, stuffed with mutants and exotic diseases. Chemical facility. Droid factory. High energy experiments facility etc.

In general you should add more difficult to reach, mysterious and dangerous locations to encourage careful and planed exploration, because, currently, it quickly becomes a boring and repetitive endeavour.

And yes. I really want a realistic snow in cata.

[DataTrans]

I’d actually very very much like adjustable seasons, starting right before winter would be great. Back onto the topic at hand: Survivors, NPCs, what-have-you, in winter, it should have a medium-ish spawn rate (If you have random NPCs on) to find frozen to death NPCs in winter gear, snowshoes and the like, and without any food. Forgive me if I come off sounding confusing,

[Sharklaser]

Good harsh winter could earn you background points too:

Start in spring: -1 points (you have luxurious amount of time to brace yourself)
Start in summer: 0 points (you will do fine, no worries)
Start in fall : 1 points (ok, you need to start acting like you care)
Start in winter : 3 points (No. Cargo shorts and t-shirt wont cut it)

[GrizzlyAdamz]

Ha, sounds good, if/when winter’s buffed. +1

[Zireael]

[quote=“Sharklaser, post:61, topic:3372”]Good harsh winter could earn you background points too:

Start in spring: -1 points (you have luxurious amount of time to brace yourself)
Start in summer: 0 points (you will do fine, no worries)
Start in fall : 1 points (ok, you need to start acting like you care)
Start in winter : 3 points (No. Cargo shorts and t-shirt wont cut it)[/quote]

I like the idea. I think it was thrown around for the Mod Manager.

[StopSignal]

Ehh, it could, but no.

The thing is that, in the lore, it starts when the game starts, not before, not after. It could break time and space.

[EkarusRyndren]

[quote=“StopSignal, post:64, topic:3372”]Ehh, it could, but no.

The thing is that, in the lore, it starts when the game starts, not before, not after. It could break time and space.[/quote]

Bah! TIME AND SPACE IS FOR QUIT- …wait…

[Pthalocy]

I agree. Winter temperatures here can vary from -10 C to -50 C during snow storms, at the south frontier of Québec. I don’t exactly know for North New England, but -5 C is somewhat… a strange winter temperature.

Woo, Canada!

-5 is usually where it is technically but then wind chill makes it feel like -15 or so, which is cold, but reasonable. (well, for a Canadian).

Wind chill wouldn’t operate if indoors or underground, though, so being able to hole up in little safespots along the way during winters would be a pretty easy way to cope with colder winters ingame. …foraging for food/goods would be harder since the commute would be so uncomfortable, but that’s basically what winter is.