Planning out 91 day seasons

[Azrad]

Anyone kind of do this? Almost summer on one playthrough and since I already have enough firepower to defend a base I reckon I start building up a sort of undertaking, which is probably slightly more productive than doing city raids in the middle of the day and trying to punch everything to death. Besides, the city is getting depopulated faster than expected.

So far, here’s what I’ve been planning before year 2 rolls around.

Spring: well, pretty much already done, but moved my base from ground level of a lab to a LMOE shelter far from said lab. Moving everything was… fun. There was a huge city in between, so at least there were roads were I can drive my cartmobile and blast Zs for fun during repeated transports. On the other hand, to get to the LMOE shelter there was a forest. Not too big, but tough to drive through even with a slow moving cart line. So basically I scorched the earth. Fire everywhere. Took a long time since game speed went to a crawl. When I was sure a large area is burning, I took a step away from the area until game speed went back to normal. Waited until rain then went back there so the area will stop burning.

After that desecration upon mother nature, I resumed the transfer of goods from one base to another. Took about a week or two in game to finish.

With everything set nice and snug on the new shelter, summer is coming. At this point the LMOE shelter is up and running, and organized. I decided to bomb my old base with C4… realizing too late that I forgot to transfer out my booze collection. Some managed to survive, though it’ll take a longer time than expected to fill up a barrel full of tequila.

Anyway, LMOE set. Got permanent light since I found quite a lot of atomic lamps. On the other hand, the LMOE shelter is more or less a temporary one. I’d rather build a base that has windows. Land outside the shelter is pretty scenic, river a few spaces away, blueberry bushes above. Lots of farm land to, well, farm.

So summer my plan is to build a perimeter around the planned base. Great log wall of new england. Set up farm land, maybe set up a sort of dock area for the look of the thing. A base with windows. Might as well make the post-apocalyptic land a paradise. When autumn comes I’ll probably be still under construction, and to not get any cabin fever I’ll take a couple of weeks off to explore other areas.

When winter rolls through I’ll get to work on another wall. Somewhat close to the planned base is a swamp. I’ll build some sort of wall there. Maybe a log wall, or get some steel frames together to build a really long ass line of steel plates to keep out pesky swamp creatures.

Anyway, anyone else have similar long-term plans on the game, or am I just kinda loony?

[deoxy]

I would consider something like that if A) season mattered all that much and B) the time it takes for things would scale.

B in particular would be necessary. The times things take now is WAY too short for “real length” seasons. Rot/spoilage times would need to be similar.

Healing time would probably need to be similar as well, actually. Ouch.

Many parts of the game are factored towards this compressed time scale.

[JazzGuru]

At the moment I’ve just started messing around with 90 day seasons because hey, I like round numbers.

But anyway, I tend to stick with the very latest experimental, so my games never really last for more than a few days at maximum…

[Valpo]

You start a new game every time you dl a new version? why?

[Derpular]

I like longer seasons, but find 90 days to drag out too long. 30 day seasons work better for me - I get to enjoy the season for what it is, and the next one comes along right about the time I’m getting tired of it.

[JazzGuru]

You start a new game every time you dl a new version? why?

'Cos I like the very beginning of the game. Setting foot into a totally new world…

Okay, I like it when I get ‘set up’ in a world as well, but hey…

[Valpo]

yep earliy survival is interesting as well as building up your own base and such later on.
The longer a single game captivates my interest with survival and things to build/loot places to explore i play then start over when i get bored.

And i do restart for features i consider major. like now with stamina .

I simply restart when i feel like it otherwise.

edit.

related to the topic of the thread:

I always play on 91 days season.

And i do agree certain things should probably be scaled up when you lengthen a year.

[Azrad]

Yup. The first phase of the game is where there’s a ton of fun for me. The entire trying to survive by scavenging, night raids, not quite ready to take on a group of zombies… so much to do. Once you reach the point where you can take down waves of enemies, go raid multiple labs without even being threatened by turrets and whatnot, etc, it kind of starts losing its luster a bit. I often end up thinking, what good is making a huge base if you emptied out the surrounding of threats?

So far I’m trying to avert that by avoiding exploring the surrounding environment and getting my stuff in further spots in the map. Also in the middle of base construction… which is taking a hell of a long time. Building the outer wall needed around 400-600 logs, plus the two by fours, and that’s just for the south side, and I’m not close to finished yet on that.

Still, as much as possible I’ll see through this project until the bitter end. I’ll do everything include carpet the damn floors. Maybe once I finish I’ll debug a massive army of monsters outside to see how long I can survive.

Anyways, aside from scaling, it would be cool if the days or years start going by and things start to change, little by little. Like new types of monsters pop up; like the fungal things and the triffids start to evolve a bit, the nether creatures become more acclimated to the world, changing them, making them show up with far more frequency away from portals, etc.

That, or as time passes increase stats/skills of enemy monsters as time goes by, to make things harder late-game.

[Valpo]

I think evolution is planned.

So what i think is better is tweaking the combat system so early survivors struggle vs generic z. And later on when all the more fun stuff arives like brutes shockers/tanks you ll still have a challenge. Of course i think that giving more live to the world by making trifids/mycus/other factions expand is a good thing. But simply scaling up monsters strength with time passed? Absolutly not desirable.

[IcedPee]

Yeah, I feel like scaling up the stats of enemies would give DDA the same problem that I have with video games like Skyrim and Dead Island: If all or most of the monsters are getting stronger in parallel to your own character, there’s never any sense of accomplishment that you’ve progressed.

It’s the logical fallacy of “When I first started I would have gotten splattered by these things, but now that I’m a max-skill badass I can… keep up with them as well as I was keeping up with every monster that appeared when I first started? Er…”

[Azrad]

Hmm, true. It was more or less a random idea, but I suppose it was a bit backwards.

[troll_from_behind]

Shouldn’t they be getting better slowly when the blob learns to pull the strings better and better as the lore did(?) mention?

[deoxy]

Once you reach the point where you can take down waves of enemies, go raid multiple labs without even being threatened by turrets and whatnot, etc, it kind of starts losing its luster a bit. I often end up thinking, what good is making a huge base if you emptied out the surrounding of threats?

[quote=“Valpo, post:9, topic:9294”]I think evolution is planned.

So what i think is better is tweaking the combat system so early survivors struggle vs generic z. And later on when all the more fun stuff arives like brutes shockers/tanks you ll still have a challenge. Of course i think that giving more live to the world by making trifids/mycus/other factions expand is a good thing. But simply scaling up monsters strength with time passed? Absolutly not desirable.[/quote]

What is needed is some kind of “they’re coming to get you” end-game situation, or at least a “this is the cause of everything and you can can stop it” end game, either of which involve large groups of powerful and well-coordinated monsters of some kind (relevant to which kind of end it is - driving the nether creatures away, for instance, might involve armies of shoggoths).

[Valpo]

The cataclysms design outline states that these events are irreversible. Going into the nether for fun? Sure why not .
Coming to get you well theres no faction in the cataclysm that would specificly hunt you. None has a reason. Maybe you can create this reason but apart that its not sensible to asume some huge coordinated attack on your survivour. Your situation may only worsen through the gaining of strength of various hostile faction triffid/mycus/nether.

[Coyote]

What is needed is some kind of “they’re coming to get you” end-game situation, or at least a “this is the cause of everything and you can can stop it” end game, either of which involve large groups of powerful and well-coordinated monsters of some kind (relevant to which kind of end it is - driving the nether creatures away, for instance, might involve armies of shoggoths).

Here’s the thing: Increasing intensity does not require a closing act. Cataclysm is supposed to be an irrevocable change of affairs, and the titular event itself is supposed to last for any given character’s probable lifespan, at the very minimum.

Once NPCs are implemented to a satisfactory degree-- If NPCs ever reach that state, as it’s a huge task and I’m an eternal pessimist-- Then they’ll contribue to the feeling of escalating intensity. Especially if multiple NPC locations with inaccessible back areas that occasional produce them into the world are added. Same for the occasional wandering band of roving unaligned NPCs. The focus of the endgame seems to be finding ways to provide for yourself and/or your NPC band and allied NPC factions in the face of an increasingly hostile landscape.

Now, in regards to that last bit-- A request towards any dev reading this would be that, at some point, responses towards horde generators be added besides “nuke the shit out of them,” and horde generators should be a slowly, passively growing threat over time if nothing is done to hinder them. (Possible medium term player decided, dynamic side quests here-- Dredging out a swamp to salt the earth against something for a small gap in another area, forcing them to cross water or regions with rough altitude changes? Setting up a manufacturing plant to leech something horrible into the aquifer that kills absolutely everything for a good bit around it?) I can imagine some large scale scenarios involving large amounts of pesticides working against ant hives, angifungals towards fungal towers, and herbicides towards triffids and equipment that’s otherwise useless, but towable. Alternately, climactic showdowns with fungal towers (already vaguely in game), triffid queen flocks, and ant queens with their full hive defending them, which should correspondingly provide a hell of a lot more loot. This last bit would be a use for the serious firepower survivors rack up, in the long run.

[deoxy]

[quote=“Valpo, post:14, topic:9294”]The cataclysms design outline states that these events are irreversible. Going into the nether for fun? Sure why not .
Coming to get you well theres no faction in the cataclysm that would specificly hunt you. None has a reason. Maybe you can create this reason but apart that its not sensible to asume some huge coordinated attack on your survivour. Your situation may only worsen through the gaining of strength of various hostile faction triffid/mycus/nether.[/quote]

Fair enough, but A) it doesn’t have to actually end the game (it’s “end game” in that you’re at peak power levels), and B) it doesn’t have to be specifically you - your last bit about triffid/mycus/nether factions gaining strength (and then, presumably, trying to use that strength to gain control of the area) is quite sufficient.

The game gets LESS difficult, LESS interesting the longer you play it. That’s good in the short term, of course - clear the area so you can properly rest and craft, etc. But SOMETHING needs to drive the player, to make use of this power the player is amassing, or you get the typical sandbox world problem - yay, that was fun, but now I’m bored, and there’s nothing else to do.

I’m not saying to make it END, only to give more game. I’m not saying that you could REVERSE the changes (dude, all those people that died are still dead, eh?), only that having random large-scale quest possibilities are good. I give you the Ender Dragon in Minecraft, for instance - not necessary, doesn’t end the game. The Whither even more so.

Concepts/suggesion: randomize which large quests are possible, and which method of possible, in each world.
-the zombie problem: no thing to do about, mass zombie elimination method via massive quest, individual zombie capture/cure possible (at tremendous cost/via highly limited commodity)
-the nether problem: nothing to do about it, some way to close the gates (which doesn’t get rid of the ones here, mind you, it only stops the invasion), a way to invade the nether itself (thin the population, or may be no effect at all, just fun)
-blobs
-triffids
etc…

You get the idea. These would be optional, difficult, have random requirements (all very hard/rare), and probably trigger attention and/or higher activity levels and/or militancy from the group in question once you got far enough down the quest path. None of these would truly “reverse” the situation. None of them would end the game.

[Valpo]

Your asking for more lategamecontent and i support that notion. —Insert my own suggestions here (to lazy now … though they should be somewhere on the forum as i voiced my opinion on this particular issue already and i think we are derailing a bit)

[Wally-kun]

The triffids are supposed to be calculating creatures, yeah? Or at least their collective is. They’re very deliberate and are capable of strategizing/assessing situations and responding to them, such as the fungus; they need them for certain things, and they slaughter the colony if it starts to become competition.

That’d be a good place to start. If the triffid collectively starts to understand that you are a threat, they’ll act accordingly. This would probably require that the player has a reason to go kick in triffid hearts or fungus towers. The blob, too, is a calculating motherfucker, and only the one inside of you is actually helping you; all the others are looking out for themselves and they’re pretty much teetering on the edge, if I understand correctly. If you start to look like a big threat to their continued survival…

Not sure how this’d get handled. Maybe hunting parties that have a detection radius that essentially guarantees that they know where you are at all times, so they can zoom in and try to assassinate you.

Or maybe the robotic police force starts to organize slightly and hunt down dangerous felons that haven’t been detained. A stand-off with riotbots would be kind of awesome actually…I’m imagining a siege dragging out, gunfire traded at max range…the AI reacting to gunfire and trying to preserve itself would be a sweet addition for that. If someone’s getting shot and they have no cover they should try to find some.

There’s a lot of stuff that could be done; it just requires actual doing. And I’m not aware of what the devs are working on right now, or how they operate. From what I’ve seen it’s more or less a perpetual cycle of ‘when someone gets around to it’.

I’m a little concerned about NPC’s myself, actually.

[TonicEngine]

Anyone kind of do this?

I do this. I’m doing 127-day seasons right now and I plan to make a base, a mobile base, and a loot car for each season. Themed! Winter (my starting season) is all about fireplaces and braziers, ice fishing and piles of MREs. Spring will be all about planting and brewing, Summer will be all about frolicking on the water and recreation, and Autumn will be the time of harvesting, where I’ll tool around town in a bring-out-your-dead-mobile collecting all the zombie parts to burn in a big pyre at the end of the season.

[Coolthulhu]

[quote=“Wally-kun, post:18, topic:9294”]There’s a lot of stuff that could be done; it just requires actual doing. And I’m not aware of what the devs are working on right now, or how they operate. From what I’ve seen it’s more or less a perpetual cycle of ‘when someone gets around to it’.

I’m a little concerned about NPC’s myself, actually.[/quote]

It kinda is. There’s an overwhelmingly huge pile of “stuff to do” and only a bunch of devs. Some of the code is ancient and unmaintained, which slows stuff down.
But still, DDA grows and matures (those are separate things) really quickly. It’s not always noticeable, but the changes in code quality are also very important.

As for NPCs: I’m currently trying to make them go up/down stairs, mostly to “tick off” all the z-level related stuff. Later on I’d like to update their AI a bit (make them not blunder into traps, steal less etc.).