Should TLD go full zombie survival?


dbldrew

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Yes I know TLD was not intended to be a zombie survival game. But I got 7 days to die for Christmas and have been playing a lot of that the last few weeks. Its a zombie survival game with lots of crafting.. basically its a hardcore minecraft.

Anyway in the game there are zombie dogs and I cant help but notice the similarity between the zombie dogs in 7D2D and the “zombie” wolves in TLD. So if we are already fighting off zombie wolves then why not just go all in and make it full on zombie survival?

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Some interesting ideas here. :D 

Down the road we will be looking into providing support for game mods, so there may be opportunities for players to introduce their own takes on the world.

For now though, we're concentrating our efforts towards the full release, which I'm told is unlikely to contain many zombies or dragons.;)

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When I was introduced to the game by a friend excitedly telling me about it, the bulk of the praise was for the atmosphere, worded like this:  "It FEELS like there are going to be zombies at any moment, but they never appear".  He was right.  That cautious, serene, unsettling feel, a cosine-wave of threat rising and receding, had a definite horror game vibe.  But the fact that it doesn't drop into the currently exhausted zombie genre is a net positive; it's bitter and lonely and dangerous while being grounded closer to the real world.

 

I still maintain, however, that the best Halloween event suckerpunch they could pull would be to quietly put monsters into the game during the next Four Days of Night.  Some of us have had years of buildup leading to THAT shock.  XD

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23 hours ago, Boston123 said:

to be entirely honest, the wolves are a pretty spot-on replacement for zombies already.

I mean; mindlessly aggressive, endlessly-respawning, serving only as a combat-able menace to the player because the environment wouldn't be "fun enough" of a threat, etc?

exactly the wolves are already zombie wolves anyway. so why not go all in? or they could make the wolves behave like real wolves and keep it a wilderness survival game. personally I would rather is went more to a wilderness survival game but if they are going to insist on zombie wolves I think it would be less irritating to just call it a zombie game and go full zombie.. 

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The problem is not that the wolves are mindlessly agressive in the game (because the geomagnetic event explains it).

The problem it is that they respawn too quikly and they dont wander/move accross the map, they do a silly patrol that was designated just to block off paths and loot.

So yes, i agree that they are the "zombies" of this game, but making them not a threat anymore shouldnt be how they fix it, they just need improved behavior/spawning, and an option to adjust their rarity and agression.

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On 1/19/2017 at 7:46 PM, dbldrew said:

personally I would rather is went more to a wilderness survival game

This is the conversation I'd rather be having.  And I don't think it requires huge changes to the game to get there, either.  Make wolves (and bears) much more elusive, unlikely to attack (although they might go ham to defend a kill), and very hard to kill (and survive) when they do decide to engage you.  Make us really work for that fur coat. 

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27 minutes ago, Ruruwawa said:

This is the conversation I'd rather be having.  And I don't think it requires huge changes to the game to get there, either.  Make wolves (and bears) much more elusive, unlikely to attack (although they might go ham to defend a kill), and very hard to kill (and survive) when they do decide to engage you.  Make us really work for that fur coat. 

Thanks for sharing your thoughts! We're continuing to work on wildlife -- we're going for an experience that is both thoughtful and compelling and would like for the behaviour of animals to reflect that.

We've heard a lot survivors stories where interactions with predators added moments tension and urgency to their experience. In a Long Dark world where wolves are more shy, how are you thinking the overall feel would be different?

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4 hours ago, Mel Guille said:

In a Long Dark world where wolves are more shy, how are you thinking the overall feel would be different?

Hi Mel,

ATM a wolf's 100% aggression makes them perfectly predictable and that predictability makes it routine to dispatch them.  Equip rifle/bow/distress pistol, step outside your comfortable shelter and attract the attention of a wolf.  Likely one is so close you don't have to leave sight of your shelter.   Hold your fire until it's close, shoot in face, wolf drop dead at your feet.  Grab what you need from the carcass and go back inside.

Personally I feel this predictability removes quite a lot of the challenge from the game.  You didn't have to plan for a long hunting trip, or getting lost, or cold or bad weather.  

What if, on the other hand, wolves were aggressive only 25% of the time when not eating their own kill.  For starters you'd have to hunt farther from your shelter so those survival considerations I mention above come into play. You might have to hunt something that runs away, like deer, for meat.  You might be caught away from your shelter by a blizzard or fog or an injury -- preparation matters again. Or you might stumble across that 1-in-4 aggressive wolf.  Personally I'd like it if this type of wolf was more dangerous than now, a threat you'd really have to honor..  That way, you'd feel the tension of watching out for the "bad" wolf as you searched for game and the other stuff you need to survive.

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On 1/22/2017 at 9:34 AM, Ruruwawa said:

Hi Mel,

ATM a wolf's 100% aggression makes them perfectly predictable and that predictability makes it routine to dispatch them.  Equip rifle/bow/distress pistol, step outside your comfortable shelter and attract the attention of a wolf.  Likely one is so close you don't have to leave sight of your shelter.   Hold your fire until it's close, shoot in face, wolf drop dead at your feet.  Grab what you need from the carcass and go back inside.

Personally I feel this predictability removes quite a lot of the challenge from the game.  You didn't have to plan for a long hunting trip, or getting lost, or cold or bad weather.  

What if, on the other hand, wolves were aggressive only 25% of the time when not eating their own kill.  For starters you'd have to hunt farther from your shelter so those survival considerations I mention above come into play. You might have to hunt something that runs away, like deer, for meat.  You might be caught away from your shelter by a blizzard or fog or an injury -- preparation matters again. Or you might stumble across that 1-in-4 aggressive wolf.  Personally I'd like it if this type of wolf was more dangerous than now, a threat you'd really have to honor..  That way, you'd feel the tension of watching out for the "bad" wolf as you searched for game and the other stuff you need to survive.

Eventually you will need to take more than 1 step outside your cabin...

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On 1/21/2017 at 11:51 AM, Ruruwawa said:

This is the conversation I'd rather be having.  And I don't think it requires huge changes to the game to get there, either.  Make wolves (and bears) much more elusive, unlikely to attack (although they might go ham to defend a kill), and very hard to kill (and survive) when they do decide to engage you.  Make us really work for that fur coat. 

agreed but this is the conversation that has been ongoing and there really isnt been anything done to wolves other then just throw more at us..

personally i think wolves (and bears) should be very aggressive around food. If you kill a deer and your harvesting it, make it so other predators will attack you and fight you for the kill. That way you have to be very careful and aware when harvesting deer. They can even beat you to your kill and be tearing it apart.. do you engage them to fight them off? Or wait and try to grab a few scraps after they are done?  

otherwise wolves and bears should basically ignore you 

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2 hours ago, dbldrew said:

agreed but this is the conversation that has been ongoing and there really isnt been anything done to wolves other then just throw more at us.

I don't think this is a good reason to stop discussing.  Hinterland are a small team with a huge "to do" list.  Just because they haven't addressed a particular issue doesn't mean they don't have plans to do so in the future.  They might even be working on it already, and just haven't shared that information publicly yet (as happened with Interloper and Forlorn Musket).

I liked the rest of your suggestion @dbldrew -- aggressive around food is good because it adds meaningful tradeoffs to the game.  And a fight for your food.  Can't afford to fight atm, but maybe you can afford to skip eating? Etc.

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But it has been addressed, it hasn't been ignored. It's been said on multiple occasions that animal behavior is something they are working on/are going to work on. So, discussing it is especially good, because that let's them know what direction the community would like to see that behavior take.

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I would personally like wolves to travel in packs and to roam more often. They generally should not attack the player if alone most of the time, but in a pack they would be more aggressive. Wolves should rarely attack from the front, but have 1 distract and others circle around the back.

I love the ideas that wolves would be more aggressive close to a fresh kill.

I'd also add that wolves should be aggressive when cornered or near their den.

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10 hours ago, bikingviking said:

The Long Dark already is a full zombie survival game. What's going to change by adding a few more?

Ultimately I think its just in the mindset of the player. TLD is being billed as a wilderness survival game that does NOT have zombies. So when they throw in zombie wolves it makes for bad game play and just irritation for the player that wanted a wilderness survival game.

Now if they just call it a zombie survival (because that is what it really is at this point) then the “zombie wolves” fit perfectly into that style of game play. It just make it less irritating to the player, “zombie wolves” are not a huge game flaw in a zombie game, like it is in a non zombie game...

As I said before I hope it doesn’t go full zombie.. but the devs need to decide what direction they want to go with the game and commit to it..

personally to make the game harder they need to make food and hunting a much more intricate part of the game. Make more hunting options, make more birch/maple available and maybe randomly spawn all through the map (that way you have to actually explore the whole map rather then just a few hot spots once you learn the map).

Having wolves and bears fighting you over a kill would make the wolves and bear a logical part of the game.

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