The Future: Playstyles

Game Talk The Drawing Board
1

I’d like to have a discussion about some of the different playstyles. What people are enjoying doing (not just what’s optimal, but what’s fun), and what we’d like to support

And to both support different styles and to encourage you to branch out of just a single approach and try and mix in a bit of other styles

2

You’ve created an awful lot of threads here. Enthusiasm is appreciated, but it might do you well to read some of the conversations that are already out there. Have you had a look at the design doc yet? (spoilers galore if you’re trying to play rather than develop)

3

Thanks for the link I hadn’t found that yet.

I’ve looked at a number of the discussions but haven’t really seen a clear direction discussed just bits and pieces all separated and not tied together into a larger tapestry.

A lot of those ideas are great, I’m just hoping to help discuss some of the larger goals and how we can tie those ideas together.

The kinds of things that if they coalesce would eventually end up in the design document

4

The initial playstyles I’ve seen from players are as follows:

  • Purely nomadic: living exclusively out of mobile bases
  • Purely stationary: Living out life, trying to survive and rebuild
  • The Citadel: Similar to stationary, but collecting NPC, gaining faction power, reclaiming cities, and eventually potentially building a nation of sorts (maybe with infighting between clans that are part of the same faction?).
  • Explorers: setting up temporary bases for farming and stashing loot, but moving on every couple months
  • Enclavers: gathering npc’s, helping them to build a self sufficient enclave, then moving on to the next town to help others (this I think has a lot of potential once the player can create multiple factions that can be allied with each other)
  • Home Base: Similar to Explorers but operating out of a major home base that they return to every so often (maybe 2 months, maybe 2 years)
5

I think that while the Purely Stationary and Purely Nomadic should be allowed to be sustainable, they should also be sub-optimal and not have access to everything, item wise or story wise.

I think we should definitely support the Explorer style for non-social players who want to be entirely self sufficient; and the Enclave style for social players I think has the greatest potential.

I think the Citadel style is potentially interesting, but might be challenging to make it properly engaging

6

For the Enclave style, I’m envisioning something like the Tool Quality Rebalance to create value both in special locations in hostile territory, and to investing time establishing a base there that you care about and value.

I’m thinking something like having some high level gear require a variety of qualities, maybe one tied to one of those special locations (like a hospital), and other qualities to workbenches you have to construct because they don’t naturally spawn in that same place.

This encourages you to set up a base and defend it in possibly hostile territory. These are natural places that encourage the player to build a fortress then establish an npc faction to help them defend those locations while they’re out scouting for parts; and then to leave that faction behind (but allied) in case they ever need to return. And eventually to move on as they look for the special locations they’re going to need for the next piece of their dream equipment

7

In general, instead of having multiple posts you usually should just edit previous ones.