Marathon Survivor Mode - In it for the long haul

Game Talk The Drawing Board
1

Me and kevin had bit of an argument last night about time dilation. While I think the suggestions brought up, like a simple setting, would be a poor decision, after some thought I’ve considered where he’s coming from. Rather than merely disabling or reducing time dilation, which I think would make for poor gameplay, I’m instead going to propose a mode dedicated to the sort of long term play some people might be interested.

This would probably have to wait until things like roaming mobs are in to actually be enjoyable to play.

So what is different in marathon mode?
No Time Dilation: Seasons take a realistic amount of days. most activities take significantly longer, skill gain is extremely reduced, healing is vastly slowed, and the energy consumption of many objects is reduced.
Increased starting status: Since making progress in game becomes far slower, this mode will be tackled by more experienced characters. Purchasing skills at start is quite important in marathon mode, and those skills will be a good deal cheaper, at least at low levels.
Resource levels adjusted: Many places will have more of any given resource. However, you might find that this is less of a benefit than you would expect as the days pass. Other resources will be in shorter supply.
Mutations modified: Mutations may take several days to fully realize or purify. Additionally, purifier will take several days to wash a mutation away. Further mutagen during the time when waiting on a mutation will do nothing, although purifier will cancel the mutation in progress. Mutation during the purifier effect stage will do nothing.
Enemy numbers increase: Higher numbers of enemies mean not just that the world is more dangerous, but that clearing zones and keeping them clear requires long-term dedication and careful gameplay.
Wilderness food sources decreased: Wildlife are less common, especially the larger mammals like bears. Vegetables produced from wilderness sources may be poisonous uncooked or less nutritious.

What other changes would you want to see to make a game feel like a real marathon, but also keep it potentially enjoyable?

2

Agreed that simply setting days-per-season to ~90 seems rather unfun.

Those look like a good start. I’d suggest that mutations ought to give some indication of what’s happening, so players can make (marginally) informed decisions about mutagen/purifier use. Something like pain or ache-messages relating to the general body part ought to suffice. (The Library has several relevant stories.)

If Enemies are more common whilst Wildlife is less, that’s…vague. Are critters like spiders/swamp denizens considered Enemies or Wildlife? Frogs & Spiders make decent eating currently.

One thing that jumps out: Weather! Might be worth introducing some safety-checks in the tables to ensure that players don’t need to make an ark or something. (I’ve had 24 hours of non-stop rain and heard complaints of multiple days’ worth.)

3

sounds interesting - almost a different game in the styles of gameplay it would create (though i imagine there will still be cars straight from deathrace). massive thumbs up! this is a style i’d really enjoy when NPCs get back up and running - someone to watch my back and help out on the bigger jobs.

4

Perhaps a more varied weather? So far we have at most lightning storm and acid rain, and you mostly don’t see the effects of the first one and the second is easily avoidable as long as you keep yourself with a roof above you, so…

…and if lightning storms could really create fires? In a really big city it would be a problem, since buildings = resources and when that great military storehouse gets destroyed and you only find it out one week later, when that was your hope of food…

Earthquakes, changing the landscape, shaking the ground, destroying houses, creating debris and making monsters to move around, seeking a new home? Volcanoes, with all the steps before a effective eruption, giving time to the player to prepare and run? A flood, that changes the city in a water maze?(Yes, creating water vehicles would be nice as well ^^)

Mist, that clouds your vision? Hallucinogenic mist, that messes with the character’s mind giving him weird visions that may or may not be real(“Nah, another fake graboid, just pass through and AAAA-”)?

Apple rain, that gives you food IF you can handle several apples falling of the sky?(Ok, perhaps this is too much)

Also, i second better NPCs, that don’t crash the game, act as friends, allies and enemies and at least some ability to create quests that don’ t depend of knowing C, it would be a good variety boost to this mode and all the game! ^^

5

I want it to rain apples irl now after reading this thread.

6

I third NPCs, but so does everybody else on the forums.
As for the weather I am a big supporter of this, possibly tie in the tables to the season (where I live it always rains in the summer and never in the winter, see Monsoon on wikipedia.
Possibly a sneak command like in DF, it would make hunting more interesting as you must sneak in order to catch prey.
If a sneak command is added than have prey just bolt away. Currently they run in circles around you when they could be 10 blocks away every turn, outrunning you in an instant.
Farming was an idea that was tossed around in the forums, not sure what the verdict was.
Expanding forests, humans cut down the trees and they push back forest lines, so when all humans are dead undead the forest lines should be coming back out.
I am basically out of long term ideas, anyone else?

7

I really like the long-term weather effects. This is it’s own thing really, as we’d want it to happen in whether you’re doing “realistic timescale” mode or not.

Just as a note, what I’m thinking we could do for this is periodically update overmaps with the effects of extreme weather, and then the next time those map tiles are loaded, the new version of the tile is generated. Depending on the degree of destruction, we could either use the existing map tile as an input, or completely replace it with something new. (I think the first would be the option in all but the most extreme cases)

For example imagine placing a tornado track through the landscape with a narrow-ish (half the width of a building or so?) line of total destruction (basically all building tiles are converted to a foundation tile), bracketed by a similar width on each side of high destruction, then zones of low destruction, and finally a debris field where the items (including those generated by the destruction of terrain) of the other zones are scattered. This would obviously be a very rare effect, but since it’s so large you’d have a large chance of coming across one.

This kind of system might also be good for milder effects like the aftermath of a normal windstorm or even just rain. The tile would be transformed to the “rain-soaked” version of itself after x amount of rain, then converted back after enough dry weather.

Anyway, inspiration struck, so wanted some details down.

8

Talking about rare effects, and considering the… nature of the Cataclysm, i was thinking about a rare “weird mist”, that would completely change a overmap tile for another, sort of overlapping/replacing a place with another.

The effect wouldn’t be instantaneous nor without warnings, so if you see yourself in the middle of one, there’s time to pack your stuff and run(perhaps some sort of built protection/way to avoid the effects, to not having your base teleported to the middle of a swamp :p).

It would be nice to scare the player and perhaps show what exactly we have at the other side of the portals beside monsters…

Sorry, still brainstorming :stuck_out_tongue:

9

Maybe gender can affect durability (hunger, thirsty, extreme temperatures, etc)?
Since you want to make it more realistic, maybe stats caps can be added to make it more interesting to pick a different gender. For example, it is more difficult to make a super strong/agile female character, but npcs/monsters may have different reaction towards her.

10

[quote=“utunnels, post:9, topic:1484”]Maybe gender can affect durability (hunger, thirsty, extreme temperatures, etc)?
Since you want to make it more realistic, maybe stats caps can be added to make it more interesting to pick a different gender. For example, it is more difficult to make a super strong/agile female character, but npcs/monsters may have different reaction towards her.[/quote]I am lost about what you mean with monsters. The NPCs already react differently though. I am kind against changing the stats for it though: if you really think your character should be weak for being female then you are completely free to invest points in a manner that reflects that.

11

Agreed.

12

Seems like it’d be nice.

I have thoughts about weather, but it’s slightly lacking right now. Also highly dependent on too bloated libraries. o_O

13

if the time is increasing by that large of an amount maybe the ability to raise stats over a comparable period of time? 1 stat increase per year maybe? or two? something to give me a sense of progression. after a year of swinging that bat at zombies, refining my technique i’d sure as hell have some muscle definition from it yah know?

but I +1 this as I already have 30+ days per season in my games

14

Kevin’s idea about changing the tiles based on weather is a great idea. So like for example we could have soil erosion around the rivers, or trees falling after thunderstorms. I am completely for this idea, but I believe that the devs would disagree because the world only randomizes 2 quadrants around you (am I right on that? The world only moves when you are around?)

15

How about simple stuff like making the dirt and grass tiles temporarily appear as snow tiles during the winter? Animals shouldn’t spawn as readily on snow tiles but of course, easy to get water. :stuck_out_tongue:

16

[quote=“iceball3, post:10, topic:1484”][quote=“utunnels, post:9, topic:1484”]Maybe gender can affect durability (hunger, thirsty, extreme temperatures, etc)?
Since you want to make it more realistic, maybe stats caps can be added to make it more interesting to pick a different gender. For example, it is more difficult to make a super strong/agile female character, but npcs/monsters may have different reaction towards her.[/quote]I am lost about what you mean with monsters. The NPCs already react differently though. I am kind against changing the stats for it though: if you really think your character should be weak for being female then you are completely free to invest points in a manner that reflects that.[/quote]

Uh, yeah. Stereotyping–even when there’s some arguable basis in physiology–is a Bad Idea. I’ve seen women turned off from indie gaming based on this sort of thing, and since I want lots & lots of people to play Cata, something that turns people off seems counterproductive.

17

Yes, the game generally only modifies tiles near you, but there are exceptions, for example when you start a mission the game will sometimes load a chunk of map and add the target of the mission.

The weather thing would be another exception, the game would go, “oh, time for a tornado”, and start loading/modifying/storing the affected map tiles, and the next time you see them the effects would be applied. Possibly we’d also want to do something similar when loading a new overmap to avoid the situation where you being nearby seems to CAUSE disasters… or maybe we do want it to work like that you darn Ishmael :wink:

18

[quote=“utunnels, post:9, topic:1484”]Maybe gender can affect durability (hunger, thirsty, extreme temperatures, etc)?
Since you want to make it more realistic, maybe stats caps can be added to make it more interesting to pick a different gender. For example, it is more difficult to make a super strong/agile female character, but npcs/monsters may have different reaction towards her.[/quote]
That’s kinda stupid. Women are usually more agile. And there are different kinds of strength. For example you need to be strong in a different way for wall climbing, weight lifting, ballet, Judo, breaking stuff with your body, etc.

19

Realistic speaking about it, it makes sense that male characters and female characters can have different attributes, but… i don’t think it really adds anything to the game. If someone wants to play more realistically, we can have some traits that changes some stuff related to what strength and dexerity can do.

Some more suggestions to things in this mode:

a) Please, a better character post-mortem. If this mode is going to be long, harsh and tough, the players deserve a post-mortem that tells about special stuff that happened, where was the character’s base, how many NPCs he interacted with, how many bullets he shot, how many quests he completed, when he stood at the death’s door, etc, etc…

b) Car pushing. With so many of them at the street, and the necessity to rely in planning, since building skills will take a LONG time or a combat-planned character, as many tools the player can get to plan as possible.

Obviously, if the player can, the brutes and hulks can much better… and i think lazycat has done something regarding kicks that push stuff around.

c) Season blending. If we will have long seasons, it’s good if they pass gradually, not suddenly(ok, we can have sudden climatic changes, but let’s leave that to rare places/ocasions…). So, if autumn is changing into winter…

…it’s getting colder, the leaves are falling(which is going to make noise when you step at them…), the snow is piling, the bears are looking for food and shelter to hibernate, the wolves are progressively more agressive by the lack of food and so on. And since the subject has been touched…

d) Monster behavior. It could be more varied, depending of how hungry and thirsty is, if is taking orders of something, how much loyalty it has to that something, how much cold or hot it is, if it’s in danger… and life cycles, of birth, grow and death, perhaps?

e) Something to avoid the perfect funneling of enemies with a single window, perhaps breaking the aforemented window or zombies pushing the ones stuck at the front forward… Window funneling is an excellent technique, and it’s so excellent that makes fighting against the zombies too safe.

Let me clarify: no, i don’t want that every zombie interaction be 100% risky, i just want that the player in this mode THINK: “Okay, there’s too many of them and i can’t hold them forever. I can attract them to the military shop behind this house and let them hurt themselves at the broken
metal, then i run to the spear holes i made at the west and hide behind the cars to avoid the spitters…”

20

Add a Kick/Punch action be replaced by the 's’mash action. This would give vehicles momentum like hitting them with others does currently and could move items on the ground.