Why Cataclysm 2?

[kevin.granade]

@bahihs

I believe “atmosphere” can be achieved with flavor content (journals, audio logs, diaries of other survivors, newspapers, etc.), this type of stuff is not difficult to add (no more difficult than any other new item, and certainly easier then weapons, armor or food) and I don’t really see how many of the existing items help with such immersion.

That’s “atmosphere”, not “immersion”, they’re different things. A good example of this is a bindle. IRL if you need to carry a bunch of stuff, and you have a tshirt handy, you can make a little bag out of it. Not having this in the game really bothered quite a few people, because it’s something they’d expect to be able to do in the scenario of the game that the game didn’t allow them to do. Once you have dedicated storage items, bindles become obsolete. Quite a lot of the “useless” items fall into this category, where they are only situationally useful.
Also, there are some truly useless items, so what? Look through your own house, there are bound to be a huge number of items that would be “useless” in the cataclysm, why should all of those items be deleted on that basis?

@bahihs

As for varied playstyle, if the “pointless junk” were evenly balanced then I suppose it would allow variation in playing style. In that case it would be a question of realism vs. game balance. For example, bows are an archaic weapon, rare and difficult to use without skill. Guns are pretty common (or should be, in a pre-cataclysm, 2nd amendment-toting U.S) and not too difficult to use (“point and shoot” doesn’t require developed muscles or a high degree of skill), while melee weapons are a last resort, and (other than bats, 2x4’s, crowbars and the like) should be incredibly rare (which they are). That’s realism.

You’re leaving out the fact that it’s potentially cheaper and safer to practice with a bow, due to noise level and absolute scarcity of ammunition. You can make arrows, but modern gun ammunition can only be found. Also you have to factor in the use case when evaluating how difficult something is to learn to use. The difficulty of using a bow is based on being able to do something “useful” with it. In reality this is either hunting, in which case you need to be able to make a kill shot against a very wary and fast opponent who will run away as soon as you give away your presence, or military, in which case you have to kill the other similarly-equipped guy before he kills you. Both of these use cases require an extremely high degree of accuracy. In the game on the other hand, you have a relatively slow-moving target that steadily advances toward you, and you need to pincushion them with arrows before they reach you. This is a totally different use case, and the level of skill required for a bow to be useful is much lower.

@bahihs

But this is a game, if something is rare, it should be powerful, if something is common it should be nerfed in someway.

I completely disagree with this as a rule. The core design principle I’m following is to base properties of items on reality when they exist in reality. If there ends up being a significant imbalance, such that there is one obvious approach that is superior to all others, then I prefer to either adjust the unreal aspects of the game, for which realism obvious doesn’t apply, or examine what we are and are not modelling in the game to see if the disparity is due to us having missed something.
For example, right now ranged weapons of all kinds are pretty superior to most melee weapons. What I’m doing is adding a mechanic that makes the player spend time to aim with ranged weapons, which better reflects reality AND enhances game balance.

@bahihs

I do like the approach the dev’s have taken with guns (noise and limited ammo), but bows, for example, are too powerful relative to their rarity. Guns should be far more accurate than bows in longer distances regardless of skill (fundamentally, guns are a more accurate weapon).

Now you’re getting into a discussion about relative balance between classes of items, which is completely different from what you started with, which is that imbalances in variety are inherently bad, are you abandoning that argument?
I’ll be taking a look at effective ranges for various ranged weapons shortly, they’re quite likely out of whack, because I doubt they have ever been looked at as a whole.

@bahihs

Finally the I think the “variety” is really an illusion, yes there is more stuff, but its not terribly different from one another. There are really only 3-4 combat variations: melee, guns, bows and maybe fists/martial arts. Within these, scales in weapon usefulness destroy any variety that is possible (we end up using the “best” weapon).

What’s the alternative, artificially make all weapons comparable in effectiveness? Within the guns category, I find myself frequently shifting my loadout based on scarcity of ammunition, so I really don’t see “one best gun” happening. Also there’s a specific problem that’s been noted, which is that a lot of guns shat should be really rare are not all that rare, so access to some of the best guns available is too good.

In conclusion, there are various balance issues the game suffers from, but in my opinion they are simple “lack of balance” in various categories rather than a symptom of “item bloat”, and I still haven’t seen an argument for why having a large variety of items is a bad thing.

[Rivet]

@Kevin Granade

I still haven’t seen an argument for why having a large variety of items is a bad thing.

                         [b]PROTIP[/b]: It's not.

[dambuk1]

Oh, btw while we are on the topic of bows and weapon wear - i never used or made bows in cataclysm but i made a few self-bows(a piece of string and a flexible tree branch) IRL - they require some maintenance every 10 or so shots (i used reed for “arrows”) and they’ll last three days at most - so they should wear down pretty quickly in-game(as all improvised weapons should).
PS i didn’t notice any weapon wear during my playthroughs (except one time when my ak47 jammed) - how slow/fast is it?

[Rivet]

@dambuk1

PS i didn’t notice any weapon wear during my playthroughs (except one time when my ak47 jammed) - how slow/fast is it?

Depends on a number of factors. For firearms it’s a combination of the gun (durability stat and various flags) itself as well as the ammo currently being fired. For melee it’s a combination of your strength versus your agility and melee skill (high strength with low agility/skill means your stuff breaks more often) as well as the material of the item, and various other flags that can affect melee wear.

[bahihs]

@Rivet. Yup you got me, I am in fact city-folk, so I can’t speak for the weapon distribution of rural areas, but I still think much of what I’ve said regarding guns and bows holds true. In the case of guns requiring a high degree of skill to operate over long distances or targeting moving targets, yes, this is true. But as Granade mentioned, Zombies are slow moving targets and in terms of long range I mean far enough that the zombies don’t notice you, but you can see them clearly (I assume this is a bit beyond throwing range with adequate cover, but I leave that to the devs decision). Gun skill shouldn’t matter all that much, in such a range, with such targets. Furthermore, guns are just easier to use than bows for simple reason that less muscular exertion is necessary, they are also more accurate because of the intrinsic physics of the weapon (rifling, which gives spin to the bullet, allows much greater accuracy than a bow and arrow)

I’ve mentioned balance in my previous post, in that instance, I meant it as an imbalance in content (as in more content for a particular thing, less for another). I also did give a solution (one which is already in the works, and has been suggested before), which is to allow mods to make such content optional.

Regarding other rpgs and item progression, while you do have a point that such things are necessary in almost all rpgs, my argument is that it should take much longer to get to that point in DDA. The event horizon should not be possible within an in-game week, and the best weapons and armor in the game should not be easily craftable. Furthermore there are cases where item progression is simplified while still retaining replayablity, my prime example for this is Sil. Still, I do realize such games are exceptions and not the rule.

Also, I haven’t played any of the experimental versions yet so I can’t speak of whats in the works. I only have a general idea based on what is posted on the forums. But from 0.A I haven’t seen any weapon degradation, if its coming up, then that’s great.

@Granade

You have a point with immersion being different from atmosphere, but I think the flavor content should help with both. Furthermore, situationaly useful items are well and good, so are “useless” items. I’m not saying you should remove them, (what would be the point of that really?) I’m saying rather than adding more “content” you should add more “features”. A.I, stealth, enemy behaviors, z-levels and other such things, while harder and longer to implement, would have a greater effect on gameplay, then more weapons, more armor and more stuff.

I don’t really understand what points you’re trying to make with your discussion of bows and guns. I’m saying guns are intrinsically (by design and physical laws) better than bows. This is obviously offset by the points you mentioned (particularly, infinite ammo and easy practice with bows). But bows require a much greater degree of accuracy and skill than guns. Wind, distance and angles become a great consideration with large heavy projectiles like arrows, but virtually non-existent with small, spinning bullets (except over great distances). It doesn’t matter if the enemy is slow, or if he is moving, bows are harder to use than guns in both cases. Also, regarding rarity of bows I meant modern composite one’s you can find at a store, not homemade ones. However, if they are common in rural areas, then I retract my statement, I was only speaking from my own city-experience.

I still think rarity implies power in some way, or should. To do otherwise, seems a bit unfair. But I do like that the level of realism is adjusted to make things more balanced. This is sensible in my opinion.

I am not “abandoning” my earlier argument regarding imbalance of content, I was merely raising a different point regarding intrinsic differences in bows and guns, and how they are not reflected in the game.

Finally, the solution to the “variety illusion” is not to equalize everything (i.e make this weapon as good as any other), but to create true variety by creating different gameplay. The bow’s true strength comes from its silence, and its infinite ammunition. Yet, this is irrelevant most of the time, because a ranged character can usually outrun everything, making noise cancellation unnecessary (I speak of static spawn here, not dynamic) and because certain gun ammunition is so plentiful (and technically all ammo is infinite, since the world is infinite), you might as well use guns. The “best weapon” syndrome does happen, except its the weapon with the easiest to acquire ammo rather than the most powerful weapon. Its great that you rotate weapons based on ammo, but I guarantee that the weapon which gets the most use is probably the one that has the most plentiful ammo (9mm, usually) because carrying multiple weapons and ammo types is unwieldy at this point. Adding new features like stealth, would allow the bow to assume a different playstyle, creating true variety.

So I’m not saying a large variety of items is a bad thing, far from it. I’m saying the content in the game so far, only gives the illusion of variety. Back to the topic of the op, I think Cata 2 will succeed in this respect: that there will be more “features” and less “content”, less “things” and more “ways to play”. At least, thats what I’m hoping for.

[Rivet]

@bahihs

But as Granade mentioned, Zombies are slow moving targets and in terms of long range I mean far enough that the zombies don’t notice you, but you can see them clearly (I assume this is a bit beyond throwing range with adequate cover, but I leave that to the devs decision). Gun skill shouldn’t matter all that much, in such a range, with such targets.

Having seen many, many, many low-skill shooters that can’t hit a (large) stationary target at fifty paces, I’m going to respectfully disagree with this statement.

@bahihs

Also, I haven’t played any of the experimental versions yet so I can’t speak of whats in the works. I only have a general idea based on what is posted on the forums. But from 0.A I haven’t seen any weapon degradation, if its coming up, then that’s great.

There’s no ‘coming up’ to it. It’s already there in the experimental. Done and ready.

@bahihs

Also, regarding rarity of bows I meant modern composite one’s you can find at a store, not homemade ones. However, if they are common in rural areas, then I retract my statement, I was only speaking from my own city-experience.

Compound bows are all that most folks in the first world use for bowhunting, excepting the occasional disabled hunter (crossbow) or the hunter that’s got a thing for archaic ones like recurves or longbows.

@bahihs

Finally, the solution to the “variety illusion” is not to equalize everything (i.e make this weapon as good as any other), but to create true variety by creating different gameplay. The bow’s true strength comes from its silence, and its infinite ammunition. Yet, this is irrelevant most of the time, because a ranged character can usually outrun everything, making noise cancellation unnecessary

Again, you might want to check out the experimental build. Now that we have wandering hordes of zeds, playing around with firearms can lead HUNDREDS and HUNDREDS of them to your door. Even in the stable 0.A, try playing with guns/bows in town at night to see exactly how much of a difference that sound can make without wandering hordes.

Also the noise difference will have a lot bigger effect once we have some sort of stealth system.

@bahihs

So I’m not saying a large variety of items is a bad thing, far from it. I’m saying the content in the game so far, only gives the illusion of variety. Back to the topic of the op, I think Cata 2 will succeed in this respect: that there will be more “features” and less “content”, less “things” and more “ways to play”. At least, thats what I’m hoping for.

I wouldn’t hold my breath, since Whales never managed to actually finish Cata1, or any of his other projects.

[KA101]

Re gun skill: City guy here, has had the opportunity to shoot .22 rimfire (rifle, single-shot) from prone at a black-dot target on the range, and some time later from standing at a styrofoam “paper” plate roughly 40 paces and ~3 feet lower than my position. (That’s the entirety of my firearm experience.)

I hit the paper of the target a few times on my second attempt (I managed to get two turns, lucky me), and hit the paper plate more often than not. I think. My shots were all over the plate, though, and I know I missed it entirely a few times.

If a black dot or a paper plate attacks me, I’m better off with an aluminum bat, hammer, or empty-handed than I am with a rifle. Not sure how I’d do v. zeds, but I’m inclined to agree with Rivet.

[kilozombie]

@KA101

If a black dot or a paper plate attacks me, I’m better off with an aluminum bat, hammer, or empty-handed than I am with a rifle. Not sure how I’d do v. zeds, but I’m inclined to agree with Rivet.

Relevant: xkcd: Cells

I’d like to think I’d be adequate with firearms, but that’s an illusion- stemming from much fake gunplay when I was younger and being able to “aim” my fingers. In any combat situation, without proper training I’d either miss or give it up entirely. Even with slow zombies, and the ones in CDDA are about the same speed as the player afaict.

[Shadowchaser]

Speaking as someone who’s fired bows, rifles, and handguns…

Bows are by far the hardest to learn to do WELL, but they’re also the ones with the least ways to catastrophically fail if you don’t know what you’re doing. Not just noise, but the different ways a gun can go wrong (blowing your own leg off holstering it when you don’t know how to use a safety, the gun jamming, trying to reload and having no idea how to release the magazine in an automatic, not knowing how to clean and maintain it…) are, in large part, marks against making them your primary weapon if you are an unskilled user.

A lack of ammunition to practice with is also an issue, because every bullet you fire at a target is a bullet you aren’t firing at a target, whereas good arrows can be reused if fired at an appropriate target. Seriously, you don’t break an arrow firing at a hay bale. You might if you miss and hit the ground or a tree or whatever, but that’s still a nonzero recovery rate, while bullets are not reuseable without access to a set of equipment that the vast majority of people will not have.

And since in Cataclysm you can down a zombie without having to specifically take out the brain, with sheer physical trauma? Peppering a target with a half dozen arrows while it slowly moves towards you is probably better than firing off half a clip and making sure that everything within half a mile knows precisely where you are.

I treat guns as “emergency weapons” in Cataclysm, personally. “Bringing out the big guns” is a phrase I do not use lightly. And were Cataclysm real… well, I’d prefer a hefty melee weapon that wouldn’t break easily, but given the choice of ranged weaponry, give me the one that I’ll be able to reuse my ammo for.

[kilozombie]

From personal, in-game experience: Carrying around a big revolver in a holster is usually a good idea, whether or not you’re a main user of guns (which is possible considering the relative commodity of gunstores). Pull it out in an emergency, and if you’re at a close enough range, it doesn’t much matter how awful you are at gunplay. Shotguns work too.

If you’re not fond of that, then you should still pick up a gun when possible. If you weren’t going to lug it anyway, then just fire at zombies or random objects, waste all the ammo, and then discard it- free zombie kills and free training of the respective skill type.

[Bonevomit]

Let me end by saying, I dont partiularly like Whales. From what ive seen of this community they have been nothing but supportive of his efforts despite his bashing of DDA. Valid or not there is no reason to attack another product when discussing your own, fly by your own merits dont shoot down other people. Furthermore I am in agreement with your skepticism of the completion of his game. I am hopeful, because its worth being hopeful in chance something comes of his project. But his history does leave much to be desired. Still Im new here and to cata in general, so take what I say with a lick of salt.

This place is too soft. One of my biggest issues with the DDA community is how poorly they take criticism on damn near everything. Someone makes a disparaging comment and suddenly it's a national emergency.

And you must be half blind to say this community has been “nothing but supportive of his efforts”, just looking at this thread alone.

[kilozombie]

@Bonevomit

This place is too soft. One of my biggest issues with the DDA community is how poorly they take criticism on damn near everything. Someone makes a disparaging comment and suddenly it’s a national emergency.

Feel free to leave and badmouth us elsewhere; but saying “fuck this place” when you have 217 posts and continue to stay is offensive.

[KA101]

@kilozombie

[quote=“Bonevomit, post:51, topic:6219”]This place is too soft. One of my biggest issues with the DDA community is how poorly they take criticism on damn near everything. Someone makes a disparaging comment and suddenly it’s a national emergency.

Feel free to leave and badmouth us elsewhere; but saying “fuck this place” when you have 217 posts and continue to stay is offensive.[/quote]

Which does reinforce Bonevomit’s point. Xe joined in November, so has been around for a fair amount of the recent flamewars. Postcount != forum authority.

[kilozombie]

@KA101

[quote=“kilozombie, post:52, topic:6219”][quote=“Bonevomit, post:51, topic:6219”]This place is too soft. One of my biggest issues with the DDA community is how poorly they take criticism on damn near everything. Someone makes a disparaging comment and suddenly it’s a national emergency.

Feel free to leave and badmouth us elsewhere; but saying “fuck this place” when you have 217 posts and continue to stay is offensive.[/quote]

Which does reinforce Bonevomit’s point. Xe joined in November, so has been around for a fair amount of the recent flamewars. Postcount != forum authority.[/quote]

I mean it as experience; bone seems to want to leave, and yet they stay.

I don’t know. I just don’t think it’s a good idea to start meta-arguments about starting arguments.

[kevin.granade]

@Bonevomit

This place is too soft. One of my biggest issues with the DDA community is how poorly they take criticism on damn near everything. Someone makes a disparaging comment and suddenly it’s a national emergency.

I must have missed that, when did anyone make a big deal of it?

@Bonevomit

And you must be half blind to say this community has been “nothing but supportive of his efforts”, just looking at this thread alone.

Fair enough, people’s opinions on the matter are mixed.

[Rivet]

@Bonevomit

This place is too soft. One of my biggest issues with the DDA community is how poorly they take criticism on damn near everything. Someone makes a disparaging comment and suddenly it’s a national emergency.

Some folks can’t accept criticism. It’s no different here than anywhere else.

@Bonevomit

And you must be half blind to say this community has been “nothing but supportive of his efforts”, just looking at this thread alone.

I can’t speak for others, but I used to be 100% behind him, looking forward to C2. But then I started reading his blog and I noticed that about every third post was an insult directed our way, so I gave that up.

[Bonevomit]

@Rivet

[quote=“Bonevomit, post:51, topic:6219”]This place is too soft. One of my biggest issues with the DDA community is how poorly they take criticism on damn near everything. Someone makes a disparaging comment and suddenly it’s a national emergency.

Some folks can’t accept criticism. It’s no different here than anywhere else.

@Bonevomit

And you must be half blind to say this community has been “nothing but supportive of his efforts”, just looking at this thread alone.

I can’t speak for others, but I used to be 100% behind him, looking forward to C2. But then I started reading his blog and I noticed that about every third post was an insult directed our way, so I gave that up.[/quote]
So the guy doesn’t like DDA. That doesn’t mean that every time he criticizes the game he is insulting you.

But maybe you’re just not used to criticism? I mean I wouldn’t be either with the amount of boot licking that goes on around here. He barely talks about DDA at all and when he does it’s pretty tame. I actually like the game(If you didn’t already know I’m the #1 DDA player) and I have stronger opinions on it than Whales.

Honestly, I think you just read his introductory post and got upset. I’ve been reading his posts pretty regularly and I sure as hell haven’t seen him talk about DDA that much. Half the time it’s even mentioned it’s from somebody else who is directing a question at him.

[kilozombie]

@Bonevomit

[quote=“Rivet, post:56, topic:6219”][quote=“Bonevomit, post:51, topic:6219”]This place is too soft. One of my biggest issues with the DDA community is how poorly they take criticism on damn near everything. Someone makes a disparaging comment and suddenly it’s a national emergency.

Some folks can’t accept criticism. It’s no different here than anywhere else.

@Bonevomit

And you must be half blind to say this community has been “nothing but supportive of his efforts”, just looking at this thread alone.

I can’t speak for others, but I used to be 100% behind him, looking forward to C2. But then I started reading his blog and I noticed that about every third post was an insult directed our way, so I gave that up.[/quote]
So the guy doesn’t like DDA. That doesn’t mean that every time he criticizes the game he is insulting you.

But maybe you’re just not used to criticism? I mean I wouldn’t be either with the amount of boot licking that goes on around here. He barely talks about DDA at all and when he does it’s pretty tame. I actually like the game(If you didn’t already know I’m the #1 DDA player) and I have stronger opinions on it than Whales.

Honestly, I think you just read his introductory post and got upset. I’ve been reading his posts pretty regularly and I sure as hell haven’t seen him talk about DDA that much. Half the time it’s even mentioned it’s from somebody else who is directing a question at him.[/quote]

Can’t get the motivation to quote directly, but there’s a post about on the second page that details how “CDDA is full of useless content”. This, compounded by the fact that many of the features we’ve implemented have been ported to his C2, like professions and multiple worlds can get people very uppity. People on the internet don’t much take kindly to hypocrites, especially ones they used to trust. That’s not unique here; it’s just Whales stirring people up. Controversy can happen on this forum,
same
as
anywhere
else.

[Rivet]

@Bonevomit

So the guy doesn’t like DDA. That doesn’t mean that every time he criticizes the game he is insulting you.

By saying ‘our way’ I was using the royal we, as in ‘the DDA project’s way’ but either way, I don’t take it personally.

[quote=“Bonevomit, post:57, topic:6219”]But maybe you’re just not used to criticism?I mean I wouldn’t be either with the amount of boot licking that goes on around here. He barely talks about DDA at all and when he does it’s pretty tame. I actually like the game(If you didn’t already know I’m the #1 DDA player) and I have stronger opinions on it than Whales.

Honestly, I think you just read his introductory post and got upset. I’ve been reading his posts pretty regularly and I sure as hell haven’t seen him talk about DDA that much. Half the time it’s even mentioned it’s from somebody who is directing a question at him.[/quote]

I am, unfortunately, very used to it, both in real life as well as here. But you don’t know me, so please don’t pretend to know my motivations.

When you start targeting the userbase here with your insinuations it immediately sets off my warning bells. Would you care to share some examples of ‘how poorly they take criticism on damn near everything’ and ‘the amount of boot licking that goes on around here’, or are you just attempting to troll?

@Whales

Just because C2 doesn’t have as much junk and pointless content as DDA, doesn’t mean it’s less complex.

@Whales

if you were playing DDA, I would assume that the feature was removed / edited into worthlessness

Those are two that jumped right out at me. In all fairness, now that I’ve read a few of his more recent posts while digging those two up, I have to say that his snipes at the DDA project appear to have reduced in both intensity and frequency, so that’s nice. I still don’t think much of his attitude towards the project overall, but I’m glad to see that his grudge has loosened a bit.

[kilozombie]

Seems that Whales spends more time being passively aggressive toward what we have instead of being mean to it.

Also, when somebody said he had another RPG project, I thought they were joking. I don’t think Whales is ever going to finish an entire game at this rate. Lots of great ideas, and good code to start, but…