Megas big compendium of possible game improvements

Game Talk The Drawing Board
1

Hi cataclysm community. This is my first time posting but I know the game since whales was the dev.
This game is good, but for it to become great, a lot of attention should be focused on the details.
I have a lot of suggestions on how to make the game better.
These are meant to add depth, flavor and realism to the game, but not all of them have the same importance or impact In the game.
If anyone is interested in putting any of these in the game, I have ideas on how to implement and balance them, so if anyone wants to, I can elaborate on anything in the list.
Sorry if it is too much, but I’m excited about this game.
Btw, congratulations on the kickstarter stretch goal.

Darkness:

*More penalties on pitch black darkness:
-Moving in a dark place should make you stumble if you walk on tiles with chairs, tables, desks, or various items in the floor.
-Stumbling should make noise and occasionally make you fall to the floor and if your dex is low, hurt yourself on the fall.
-Reloading in pitch black darkness should occasionally fail; the lower the firearms skill, the higher the chance to fail
-Failing to reload should make you lose a turn, or drop the magazine/clip to the floor, and make noise.
-Stumbling and reload failing should happen more if your dex is lower, and less if its higher.

Weather:

*Wind:
-It should come in currents (with direction), and lower your body temperature depending on how light your clothes are.
-It should vary in strength, from breeze to hurricane.
-It should follow logical patterns (in a house, one open windows does not create a current, but two will do; on narrow passages the wind will blow stronger)
-It should blow away things in the direction of the wind; stronger winds blow heavier objects.
-It should make your get dry faster.
-It should make smoke disperse faster.

*Humidity:
-It should affect how long does it take for food or corpses to spoil, higher humidity should make the process faster.
-It should affect how quickly your body temperature changes, high humidity should make the process slower.
-It should change the probability for rain, higher humidity = higher chance of rain.
-It should affect the health of the player. High humidity should make breathing harder, low humidity should make skin dry and brittle.
-It should affect mold/fungaloid spread.
-The humidity of a closed room could be modified with heat/desiccants/liquids.

*Fog:
-Like smoke, but will not damage you/make you cough.
-Will appear in high humidity/low temp situations (so you could artificially produce it).
-Will be dispersed by heat (fire, torch), but not with electrical light (will reduce range of light).

Foods/Liquids/Corpses:

-The game should manage liquids in a more real way, instead of using charges, use real measurement units, like milliliter.
-There should be a limited water content in each body; it could work like quality (moist > normal > lightly dry > dry > almost dust).
-This water content, plus temperature and humidity should tell you how long would it take for a corpse to turn to bones (or chunks of meat).
-Zombie corpses on different climates will revive them with different properties (more later)
-Be able to use heat or/and salt to quickly dry meat.

Stats/skills:

*Stat gain:
-As a skill levels up, a related stat will raise by a small percentage depending on the skill
-This percentage won’t help until it reaches 100% (similar to Zelda heart pieces)
-Int is increased by electronics, computers, speech, barter.
-Str is increased by melee, bash, construction, swimming.
-Dex is increased by dodge, first aid, tailor.
-This are just examples and the list is not complete, but easy to do.

*Perception role in game
-Perception should change depending on the light level, a well lit room will make things easier to spot, increasing perception, while a dark room will reduce it.
-Perception should be linked to how far away you can spot items (each point increases radius of item detail by 1)
-Glasses influence perception and not just near/far-sighted; on low base perception, some glasses will increase it while others will decrease it; on high natural perception, all glasses will decrease it by varying amounts.

*Skills
-Archery trains firing any arrow to any target; firing a moving target, or archery target will do it faster; hitting the target will give more exp. No longer trains from crafting arrows.
-New skill: Fletchery, learned from same book as archery; low level, lousy arrow, high level, good arrow.
-New skill: Bullet crafting, learned from its own book; low level, lousy ammo, high level, good ammo.
-New skill: Acrobatics, used to make better jumps and landings; wall jump at higher levels.

Locations/biomes/enemies:

*New biome: Desert, lots of sand, cactus, dried shrubs, and the occasional oasis with fresh spring water, and exotic fruits.
-Enemy: Giant tarantula, aggressive, runs fast, painful poison.
-Enemy: Giant scorpion, aggressive, painful poison, stabbing stinger.
-Enemy: Giant desert wasp, aggressive, ovipositor, painful poison.
-Neutral: Camel big mammal
-Neutral: Hare fast mammal

Character customization/mutations/new features:

*Rebalance mutations/traits:
-Near-sighted: should reduce perception and blur things far away (more later).
-Far-sighted: you shouldn’t be able to tell which medicine bottle is which.
-Asthmatic: should trigger with smoke, spores, humidity and cold
-Bad back: should give lasting pain if sleeping in a place not confortable
-Aware: should give you information about your food taste, should give more information about diseases

*Character food taste: Each player should have random taste on food; some PCs will not enjoy alcohol, some vegetables, coffee, meat; on the other hand, some players will get extra morale boost for tasting their favorite food.

*New character features:
-Walk mode, slower but quieter
-The ability to shout, to get the attention of the zeds without having to smash a bottle

Damage/Body part:

Ok, I’m kind of tired of writing all of this but think something like dwarf fortress body part system.

Im really tired so I will fill this up with more stuff later.

2

My god, I like this. Especially the wind one.

3

Sounds nice.

I don’t want to offend anyone, but bullet crafting sounds really stupid… Gunsmithing (even though that could also determine how good you are at crafting/modifying actual guns) or Handloading would be better Skill names. Also…Acrobacy…is that even a word? I’m pretty sure what you mean is Acrobatics.

Anyway, I very much like it. More differentiation between skills, is always cool in my book, as long as it serves a purpose.
I’m developing PnP Systems myself and I always try to go for Authenticity (which is not Realism) and Diversity when it comes to Stats and Skills.

For example - and I am pretty sure that some(all) of you may think that it sounds stupid - it always bugs me that cooking also incorporates the discipline of Chemistry.

4

[quote=“Megas_, post:1, topic:2320”]Darkness:


*More penalties on pitch black darkness:
-Moving in a dark place should make you stumble if you walk on tiles with chairs, tables, desks, or various items in the floor.
-Stumbling should make noise and occasionally make you fall to the floor and if your dex is low, hurt yourself on the fall.
-Reloading in pitch black darkness should occasionally fail; the lower the firearms skill, the higher the chance to fail
-Failing to reload should make you lose a turn, or drop the magazine/clip to the floor, and make noise.
-Stumbling and reload failing should happen more if your dex is lower, and less if its higher.[/quote]
I like these, especially since it could give you a reason to put points into PER again if we tied your ability to see in darkness to it.

*Wind:[spoiler] -It should come in currents (with direction), and lower your body temperature depending on how light your clothes are. -It should vary in strength, from breeze to hurricane. -It should follow logical patterns (in a house, one open windows does not create a current, but two will do; on narrow passages the wind will blow stronger) -It should blow away things in the direction of the wind; stronger winds blow heavier objects. -It should make your get dry faster. -It should make smoke disperse faster.[/spoiler]
A lot of this is already planned, we just haven't had anyone get around to doing it yet (and we need to decide on a nice, light algorithm that can do wind).
*Humidity:[spoiler] -It should affect how long does it take for food or corpses to spoil, higher humidity should make the process faster. -It should affect how quickly your body temperature changes, high humidity should make the process slower. -It should change the probability for rain, higher humidity = higher chance of rain. -It should affect the health of the player. High humidity should make breathing harder, low humidity should make skin dry and brittle. -It should affect mold/fungaloid spread. -The humidity of a closed room could be modified with heat/desiccants/liquids.[/spoiler]
I don't know if we had thought about too much of these effects. Some of them, like affecting the health of a player, seem like they are small enough effects that I'm not too sure if they would be worth the time to add them. The ones that interact with weather are part of the planned weather updates though.
*Fog:[spoiler] -Like smoke, but will not damage you/make you cough. -Will appear in high humidity/low temp situations (so you could artificially produce it). -Will be dispersed by heat (fire, torch), but not with electrical light (will reduce range of light).[/spoiler]
Sounds like good ideas to me.
Foods/Liquids/Corpses: [spoiler] -The game should manage liquids in a more real way, instead of using charges, use real measurement units, like milliliter. -There should be a limited water content in each body; it could work like quality (moist > normal > lightly dry > dry > almost dust). -This water content, plus temperature and humidity should tell you how long would it take for a corpse to turn to bones (or chunks of meat). -Zombie corpses on different climates will revive them with different properties (more later) -Be able to use heat or/and salt to quickly dry meat.[/spoiler]
The game actually does use real units. Each unit of liquid (with the exception of gasoline, which is 100x smaller then this amount) is equal to .25 L. Right now the weight system is a little messed up, but we're in the process of rewriting it so that 1 unit of weight = 1 gram. I think that the water extractor already does something to stop you from drawing infinite water from a body, if it doesn't then it's at least on the bugfix list. As for drying meat, you can already use salt to turn meat into jerky, smoking meat with heat does seem like a good idea though.
*Stat gain:[spoiler] -As a skill levels up, a related stat will raise by a small percentage depending on the skill -This percentage won’t help until it reaches 100% (similar to Zelda heart pieces) -Int is increased by electronics, computers, speech, barter. -Str is increased by melee, bash, construction, swimming. -Dex is increased by dodge, first aid, tailor. -This are just examples and the list is not complete, but easy to do.[/spoiler]
Planned, and I hope to be able to put some time in on it once I finish the weight rewrite. It does take a bit of effort to balance though, because we want to: 1)Not allow for infinite stat gain 2)Not force players to grind more, the effect should be more like a side effect of having a successful survivor, not something you set out to do. 3)Allow for stat degradation over time
*Perception role in game[spoiler] -Perception should change depending on the light level, a well lit room will make things easier to spot, increasing perception, while a dark room will reduce it. -Perception should be linked to how far away you can spot items (each point increases radius of item detail by 1) -Glasses influence perception and not just near/far-sighted; on low base perception, some glasses will increase it while others will decrease it; on high natural perception, all glasses will decrease it by varying amounts.[/spoiler]
I like the first two ideas, but as a glasses wearer in real life I don't agree with your third one. I can tell you for a fact that my PER is much higher with my glasses then without it. If I'm nearsighted then it doesn't make sense that my glasses decrease my PER while I'm wearing them when I can still see better then normal.
*Skills[spoiler] -Archery trains firing any arrow to any target; firing a moving target, or archery target will do it faster; hitting the target will give more exp. No longer trains from crafting arrows. -New skill: Fletchery, learned from same book as archery; low level, lousy arrow, high level, good arrow. -New skill: Bullet crafting, learned from its own book; low level, lousy ammo, high level, good ammo. -New skill: Acrobacy, used to make better jumps and landings; wall jump at higher levels.[/spoiler]
These ideas have been tossed around before, but we've had other things on our plate for now. The acrobatics skill will probably have to wait until z-levels go in though.
Locations/biomes/enemies:[spoiler] *New biome: Desert, lots of sand, cactus, dried shrubs, and the occasional oasis with fresh spring water, and exotic fruits. -Enemy: Giant tarantula, aggressive, runs fast, painful poison. -Enemy: Giant scorpion, aggressive, painful poison, stabbing stinger. -Enemy: Giant desert wasp, aggressive, ovipositor, painful poison. -Neutral: Camel big mammal -Neutral: Hare fast mammal[/spoiler]
The game takes place in New England. I don't know if you've ever been there, but it is definitely not able to be considered a "desert" by any stretch. I could see maybe once we get some better portal systems set up that we could have a portal that was creating a desert area around itself, but for the moment deserts are out.
Character customization/mutations/new features:[spoiler] *Rebalance mutations/traits: -Near-sighted: should reduce perception and blur things far away (more later). -Far-sighted: you shouldn’t be able to tell which medicine bottle is which. -Asthmatic: should trigger with smoke, spores, humidity and cold -Bad back: should give lasting pain if sleeping in a place not confortable -Aware: should give you information about your food taste, should give more information about diseases[/spoiler]
I agree with your glasses ideas, though any sort of PER penalties should be removed while wearing the proper glasses. The others are good ideas, and we've been talking at potential things to add to the Aware trait for a while now.
*Character food taste: Each player should have random taste on food; some PCs will not enjoy alcohol, some vegetables, coffee, meat; on the other hand, some players will get extra morale boost for tasting their favorite food.
This is a planned extension of the preferences system. When it gets in eventually players will have a much wider base, which can allow them to change their likes/dislikes for everything from food to spiders to killing children (at the cost of points for some things).
*New character features: -Walk mode, slower but quieter -The ability to shout, to get the attention of the zeds without having to smash a bottle
Nice ideas.
Damage/Body part: Ok, I’m kind of tired of writing all of this but think something like dwarf fortress body part system.
The biggest thing about this is that in our opinion DF takes things a little bit too far. We are planning on implementing a rewrite of some of the combat system to include coverage/weak points for monsters soon, which should emulate a large portion of DF's system.
5

Thanks for all the feed back and its good news to know that a lot of what I planted is in the works.

I don't want to offend anyone
You were right, and no offense was taken.

I will edit my first post to update new suggestions that I couldn’t write before. But I will use this post to justify some of the stuff that I write.

but as a glasses wearer in real life I don't agree with your third one

I will explain a little bit further. Have you put on glasses that were not yours?
My idea was that a low base perception meant something like bad eyesight, but since near and far sight are a trait, then low per should me something like astigmatism; now if you have high natural perception, that means that you have good natural eyesight; in that case, if you put on someone else glasses, your view would be worsened.
My idea with the item is the introduction of correcting glasses, that would come with a random prescription. You would have to try the item to see if it is close to your level of eyesight damage (low per), but if you have a high natural perception, then wearing glasses will naturally reduce it.

DF takes things a little bit too far

I know right? Now that I have rested I can elaborate on the parts that I think are important.
Your cutting attacks should somethings cut off legs, arms, decapitate zombies. Your piercing attacks should sometimes puncture living enemies lungs, or struck nerves, poke eyes out. Bashing damage should bruise muscles and crush bones, making those useless. Maybe its too much.

6

[quote=“Megas_, post:5, topic:2320”]I will explain a little bit further. Have you put on glasses that were not yours?
My idea was that a low base perception meant something like bad eyesight, but since near and far sight are a trait, then low per should me something like astigmatism; now if you have high natural perception, that means that you have good natural eyesight; in that case, if you put on someone else glasses, your view would be worsened.
My idea with the item is the introduction of correcting glasses, that would come with a random prescription. You would have to try the item to see if it is close to your level of eyesight damage (low per), but if you have a high natural perception, then wearing glasses will naturally reduce it.[/quote]
As the best that I understand it PER isn’t really a measure of how good your eyesight is, but is rather a measure of how “perceptive” you are with your eyesight. So for example a person with higher perception will be better at noticing small gaps in an enemies armor, or will be better at spotting the pill bottle poking out from under the pillow. (This can also tie into night vision as a person with better perception, though they would have the same vision range as a normal person, would be better at recognizing what the things they saw were).

I do understand the idea to (realistically) give different eyeglasses different prescription values, but I’m not too sure that doing so would be a good idea. Forcing micromanagement onto players generally isn’t a good thing, after all. I do think that it would be a good idea to give penalties if you wear the wrong glasses (i.e. wearing reading glasses when you need eyeglasses), but I’m not sure it would be a good idea to diversify glasses farther just due to the amount of inventory management it would then require to find a good pair.