Post #2: “Changing tactics” or “A new approach to an old problem”
I wanted to split my last post since it was a bit too long and discussed what the problem was. This one will focus on offering an easy solution.
For those of you who dont use ‘the tactic’, the game probably seems pretty hard, and for those that do, its fairly unchallenging. Its this sort of thing that needs changing mostly. I dont know exactly how we get there as there are lots of things to tackle along the way, but at the end of the day we need to find a solution to the issue of the ‘one tactic’ problem.
Ranged zombies and necromancers can help limit the use of this overpowered tactic, but because most monster behavior is similar to eachother, almost all of them fall prey to the same tactic. Hide out of sight behind the wall of a house near a window, and pretty much every zombie will come in after you single file to get slaughtered. Including ranged ones. So we either need further diversified monster behavior, more varied types of threats, or we need to try and make the tactic a little less effective.
We also have to consider how these changes will affect primarily melee based players. The only thing we want to do is make a melee player need to think about and change up his tactics/position slightly more. We dont want to make him take more damage from melee, unless he continues to do the exact same thing over and over again.
- Maybe the solution to all of this is to cause windows and bushes to eventually break if so many actions are taken moving into one, or attacks are made against enemies who are already in one. If too many zombies are trying to get in through a window, or if too many have crawled in through it, maybe we need to cause the window tile to crumble and lessen the movement penalty. Perhaps even completely break the tile that contained the window so that it becomes a ‘small pile of rubble’ with a movement penalty of 125 or 150 instead of 400. This will FORCE the melee player to move to a more advantaged position eventually when all his cover gets destroyed unless he wants to be overrun, or unless hes willing to fight on slightly more fair terms.
We arnt trying to make it harder, we are just trying to diversify the threat. If a player is forced to move, he could become open to new threats, but it still allows him to play smart and tactically and not take damage. He just cant slay an entire legion of zombies while standing on exactly the same tile with minimal or even zero risk. He has to start moving to other houses, or running further and further away from town to fight monsters in the bushes because all of his cover is being used up.
This proposal is essentially to make ‘cover’ a resource that needs to be managed… Since there are ways to build both walls and windows, and to move items to block windows/gaps, this damage would not necessarily be permanent. If zombies break down all the window-walls in a players house, this gives him incentive to find the materials to rebuild his windows, if he should want them. Thus we are giving the player more self-objectives as time goes on, and changing the landscape so that the world does not seem as static and unchanging. A house that used to be the perfect zombie fighting fortress, could slowly lose its effectiveness and would need repair, or need to be abandoned. Im not suggesting that regular zombies break walls, just that they can destroy or wear down the movement penalty for entering a tile over time.
Would this idea work? Instead of trying to tackle the problem from a brute force method of increasing HP or defense, or trying to script new AI behaviors, we simply limit the number of uses that the exploitable tile has, thus making it a non-permanently exploitable tactic and allowing it to be legitimately balanced method of combat? Just like we have ammo for guns, and a system to balance noise so you dont run around shooting at everything. We need a system to balance melee combat too. This does not stop a melee character from playing effectively, but it does stop him from doing it endlessly at the same location. It might require that things like fences and traps also have some sort of durability to them if they are fought on, but because they can be crafted and repaired, this seems like it would only further the survival/crafting ideals that Cataclysm is based around; that resources are not permanent and need to be managed or replaced.
I would very much encourage and appreciate feedback and opinions, both good and bad. This is the best solution that i can come up with which should not require massive re-balances across the board and tweaking HP/defense/weapon stats/monster types. In a sense it may also enhance the survival element by giving the player more things to do with his crafting skills.
