This isn’t my clip, but it did make me laugh.
Jank, what jank?
http://xboxclips.com/SACRED0EAGLE1/759b8ae7-5719-4162-bad6-a9e4254c8a60
Yes, it’s a totally valid point, see how Rebuild handles it. And it doesn’t mean I don’t like the game it’s just an observation. SoD1 pretty much ruled my life for a month.
However I’ll accept that there are also just different perspectives on this and appreciate @Left_Empty explaining his. It’s interesting that he reaches a peace with the Z… that’s kind of beautiful in a way I hadn’t thought about before, like man coexisting with animals. I’d always thought the endgame for an apocalypse sim was either you take the world or it takes you.
There’s a radio broadcast in SoD2 by some enclave or whatever that says a few poignant lines on this subject; that the zombies will always be there, and mankind will simply have to adapt to co-existing with them. That life going forward will be about survival explicitly, not domination.
That was something that actually stood out to me in the first game. If you looked at the map there and counted the houses you could extrapolate that it had a population of a few hundred people at most. Add in tourists and outside people there would have been a thousand zombies present at most.
Assuming that survivors would kill only ten zombies a day on average (which is far less than the game usually manages), it would take at most four months to clear out the entire valley.
Doing the same for any metropolis with millions of zombies would be out of the question, but a small city with a few ten thousand zombies at most could be cleared out by a small group of survivors within a few years.
I was sorta hoping that there would be a game mode with a zombie counter in this game so that you could work towards a goal besides just surviving.
I am enjoying this game so far. I see the jenk everyone is talking about, but the base building and resource management seems balanced pretty well to me. I can see all of @Spect comments as true for the most part, but I see them in a different light I guess?
The re-spawning zombies is annoying as hell. It is especially annoying when you are in your base with 9 other survivors, and constantly being interrupted by one wandering zombie. Also, most of my conversations in cars go like this: “So anyway, I was saying… Hold on! I have to deal with this! OK, where was I? Oh yes I… Wait! Have to take care of this issue…So, as I was saying…”
Companions Dying - I’ve had that happen once so far, and it was actually a big bummer, but totally my fault. One thing this game does better then any game I can think of in recent history is force me to use my consumables instead of hoarding them! I can’t stress this enough, but every fight is made far easier with a stack of firecrackers and 2 Molotov. And they are both cheap to make! Zombie stupid is very exploitable in this game, and your use of expendable items plays a much larger role in this game. My typical play style in any RPG, open world game is to hoard hoard hoard! But you really need to let loose and use those items.
The radio calls I pretty much ignore unless it’s one of three things: 1) another enclave that are friendly to me. 2) the rare trader who might have a decent gun or car upgrade, 3) a "?"that is nearby and I have an open bed. Everyone else is on their own.
But Rebuild has a totally different structure. In Rebuild you are clearing out areas permanently and (hopefully) constantly expanding your base until you take over the map. In SoD you’re scavenging the map for resources but you’re not materially expanding your base area. The world outside your relatively small base stays dangerous.
Yes, that’s true. However I don’t think it helps my suspension of disbelief when the mechanics don’t honor simple logic. As @Wo1verine said above, it’s not about there being zombies in the world, heck that’s why we play. It’s they way they populate; if you like it the way it is, that’s cool. Some of us think it’d be more convincing with a different approach.
Yeah but in Rebuild the zombie hoards roam in from the outside of the city towards whatever zones you have secure and you have a few turns warning. If they followed SOD2’s model, you would clear out a building next to your base ready for expansion and next turn it would have a hoard out of nowhere.
I once cleared a building adjacent to my base, then fast-open a container and made a bunch of noise, and the zombies spawned right inside my house next door. Not just on the property, but in the house.
The triggered spawns did bug me at first, but I’ve come to terms with it because of how I look at the game compared to other open world games. I think of zombies less as monsters and more as a constant form of attrition against my resources, like building a paper house in a rain forest.
Are any patches expected for this? Love the idea but some tactical dejanking would be great.
I wouldn’t hold out much hope for significant dejanking given the state of the first game.
The jank has been tolerable for me. Shit happens, but it doesn’t really break the game. The worst was when I had to abandon a police vehicle when it became fatally stuck in some rocks on a dry creek. No way to unjam it from that spot. Not sure if that’s an intentional design feature but if not, maybe they need an “unstick this vehicle” option, like you have for characters that get stuck on things.
I’m also cool with the zombies teleporting in on occasion. Again, it hasn’t really slowed me down or distracted me too much, so far.
Just discovered Camp Kelenqua and was fortunate enough to have enough influence to move in. Such a game changer.
Was sad to lose a mission related to the Boozers group; Andrea, an alcoholic, kept wussing out on me at critical times and finally died when I had exactly nine minutes to go find a plague cure for her. Was hoping to see the conclusion of that little mini quest – would she have rehabilitated and, after joining up, become a strong team player? I went ahead and recruited the rest of the Boozers anyway.
If you’re okay with Pirahna Bytes games, this is fine. Pretty slick even. :)
This might sound like a stupid question - but does it matter if you clear an infestation with car or by hand? It says I’m supposed to get a morale boost. I’m a wuss, so I’ve taken to driving up to the infestation, honking my horn, the running over everything until the infestation is cleared. But the game doesn’t give any indication that I’ve succeeded except the icon being removed from the map.
Conversely, if you clear it manually you get a little dialog and I think the music might change?
Also had some obnoxious bugs last night. One was that I would pickup multiple plague samples, but only some of them would appear in inventory. The other was a mission where I needed to get parts, and for some reason the counter wasn’t counting all the parts in my inventory, so I had to get like 3x the amount of parts that the mission required.
Roll on the Seattlejank!
I noticed and wondered about the same thing. Cleared three infestations in a short time using the same method, and the advisory to clear out infestations was still active.
I just reached day 14, and bloaters and screamers are starting to show up around every corner. I do see the occasional juggernaut, but I try to keep away from those because I hate wasting that much ammo for a meager 65 influence.
My biggest problem as of late is a member of my community, a person named Alex. It turns out, had I paid better attention when I recruited them, that Alex is an activist… this means they keep instigating fights over absolutely nothing, even when their mood is cheerful.
Now, earlier in the game I would have just booted them out, but Alex has maxed out all their skills, skills I actually need. So I’ve been putting up with the drama and militant attitude.
Well, this morning Alex came up with a list of ultimatums I need to complete or they’ll leave the settlement for good.
- Find an Ammo rucksack.
- Destroy a plague heart.
Well, I couldn’t force Alex to do any of this themselves because the character was unselectable until these tasks were completed. And worse yet, the game kept bugging out and not counting (towards Alex’s demands) the ammo rucksacks I brought back. This is on top of the fact I’d use the radio to locate a rucksack (since I’ve already scoured all the ammo off the map), but the requested ammo would never show up on the map, and I’d have to wait another 15min to request again. All while expecting Alex to leave any second, taking good skills and a bag full of good gear with them.
So I went to destroy a plagueheart, my 5th or 6th. They’re not so simple to blow up anymore, but I managed.
After doing that, I found a rucksack of ammo in a broken-down car, and satisfied Alex… for now. I’m not a fan of being held hostage by my own people, so the minute I can replace them easily I will.
And in the future, I’ll be paying more attention to traits, no more activists!
And in the future, I’ll be paying more attention to traits, no more activists!
This is one of those examples of things that can really suck to have to deal with in the game, but end up being a great story to tell.
I’d been going along nicely my first few hours, slowly building up my base and gathering a few extra survivors. No big issues other than some lack of food that I had some fun trying to deal with. This weekend I put in some time and everything just fell apart.
I’d been trying to stabilize the food situation so I could begin taking on the Sheriff missions with my leader, Rose. I was about to start doing that when an emergency call came in from one of the other enclaves that were being attacked. It was the first time a mission had come up with a strict time limit countdown, which was, like, less than 5 minutes. I jump in a Survey Car and race over there. One of the roads is blocked with derelict cars, but there’s a small gap between one of them and a wall, so I line it up perfectly and hit the gas… CRUNCH. I’ve completely jammed this car into the gap.
I jump out and run for it and make it to their house with seconds to spare. It’s a massacre. It’s actually my first time dealing with human enemies, so I just jump into the fray, and Rose doesn’t even last a minute. It’s my first big loss for the community.
I send her partner Alexa to gather her belongings, and, as I pick up Rose’s rucksack, Alexa quietly says, “I’ll be sure someone makes good use of your stuff, hon.” :(
My very first death occured on my very first mission. One enclave wanted me to retrieve a stolen rucksack from another enclave. I had two options, fight for it or talk it out. I opted to talk it out, which worked fine because the thieving enclave just agreed, dropped the pack on the ground and didn’t raise a fuss… until I picked the rucksack up and they all pulled out rifles and murdered the shit out of me.
On day 9 I finally got around to going back, killing them all, and taking their base.
