So is SOD 1 still worth playing in your opinion?
The first game is great. It’s just that at this point, you could play the sequel and get all the map from the first game with all the QoL and stuff the sequel brought.
It’s sorta like L4D and L4D2. L4D is good, but L4D2 contains everything it had plus all the new stuff.
Ok thanks
The one thing that kept me from playing much of SoD1 was the field of view (FOV). It was too zoomed in for me, and there was no way to adjust or mod it.
I absolutely loved SOD 1 and had a blast playing through it multiple times. As @Telefrog says though, SOD 2 has a lot of improvements on the same base gameplay that make it the superior game.
However, if you want the full story of Trumbull Valley, then the main campaign of SOD 1 is where it starts. Even though the map is replicated in SOD 2, the storyline is not, so if you want to meet Lilly and Ray and all of the other State of Decay storyline characters and experience their stories during the first days of the apocalypse, then you’ll need to play through the SOD 1 campaign. I also highly recommend the Daybreak DLC (included in SOD Year One Edition) as it is a completely different experience with different characters and setting and objectives and it’s own storyline (which was also quite good).
Thank you.
Another tip I remembered after falling victim to it last night : Always carefully examine the skills and traits of both your starting characters and any new people you add to your community.
In my new Trumbull Valley game I noticed I only had two labor at my base despite having 4 people. Turns out one of my starting characters had two negative traits, each deducting one labor. This lazy bum was cancelling out himself and a whole additional person from my labor force! What really sucks is that I like him the best of all my current characters because he’s entertaining, has good fighting skills and has a high Utilities skill (which is so great to have in the early game). But -2 labor is a killer when looking to expand your bases, so poor Ryan may have to be cut loose into the wasteland. I do know of another survivor I came across with Pioneering, so if I can recruit that survivor I can cut the lazy bum loose.
The right mix of skills makes or breaks your survivor group. When creating/recruiting don’t waste time on anyone with their last skill slot filled with a useless skill (like Shopping) or a skill that can only get to a limited set of stars. The best recruits are often the people with nothing in the last slot, as that means you can use a book or an outpost to train them for the exact skill you need.
That is a good tip! And these character traits are the one thing you can’t change later in life (everything else is changeable eventually with some trader books)
Likewise, there are some great traits out there as well that give you extra health extra stamina, or +1 to daily resources. Some great ones are “Sleeps Anywhere”, Cheerful, and the super heroic “Blood Plague Survivor”
While we’re at it, I always used to completely disregard people with quirk 1 star skills as well, but there are a few well worth having. Lichenology is really good, as it gives you agriculture as well as +2 food per day. Another one I love is Hygiene, as it gives the whole community plague resistance. Also when you get to later difficulties, you will want one (or more) people with “Soundproofing” Practically a must have for large bases…
Don’t be so quick to discard poor Ryan just yet! While it is always important to be prepared to drop duds from your community, utilities is such an awesome skill. If you move to plumbing you get a really sweet passive morale boost if you build a latrine. Plus hydroponics! Let some other chumps do the work.
Utilities is awesome, which is why I will probably keep him around a bit longer, but I am also ready to move to a larger base, and that means building and clearing, which means the need for a larger labor pool. Always being 2 labor short is going to get old really fast.
I recently found Chavez (and his Pioneering skill) as well, so once I can recruit him Ryan is toast!
I think my Trumbull Valley Homecoming playthough may be bugged.
Spoiler tags because the bug has to do with an NPC, base and possible story quest(s).
After moving into the Red Talon base at the fairgrounds, I cleaned up the storage facility and built a medical facility (2) in the small open slot. I then had my survivors clean up the Red Talon bunkhouse, so now I have 6 survivors and 8 beds, 6 from the base itself and 2 more from a passive trait on one of my survivors. In order to progress any further in cleaning up and building the base, I have to use radio commands to contact Chavez (the Red Talon survivor) and he will come to the base to assist.
However, every time I call him, no matter what facility I ask for help with, his answer always comes back negative, saying he’s busy helping a friend and to try again later. No quests have spawned for Chavez to increase standing with him (currently neutral), and I have already progressed several other main NPC quests, so it’s not like I’m not far enough along in the story (at least I don’t think that’s the problem).
It’s like I haven’t met some requirement yet, but I can’t figure out what it may be and Chavez’s negative response doesn’t hold any real clues (he’s not actually helping any other NPCs, he’s just sitting in his cabin). The only thing I can think of is that maybe the game checks to see if there is a bed for Chavez, and somehow thinks that since there are 6 actual beds in the Red Talon base, and I have 6 survivors, that I’m “full” because the check isn’t seeing the two “ghost beds” I get from my other survivor’s trait? I have one survivor, Richard, who is new and doesn’t have any skill or trait that isn’t already duplicated among the others, so I may let him go and see if Chavez suddenly changes his mind.
There is a quest for each of the red talon buildings at the FOB base for Chavez and as far as I know Chavez doesn’t join you but someone else does, a red talon operator after finishing all the quests.
So all of the sudden last night, it started working.
After having clicked on each of the radio commands to talk to Chavez about the watchtower, officer’s quarters and workshop repeatedly, and being spurned repeatedly, last night I started up the game and just for fun clicked the watchtower one again for like the 3rd time. All of the sudden Chavez is now like “Hey man, sure I can help, come on over to my creepy cabin in the hills outside of town!”. I visit him, he joins me on a hunt for a piece of equipment to repair the watchtower, and just like that I’m fixing up the Red Talon Base again after being stuck for days. I then asked about the workshop, and he introduced me to Cowen, his Red Talon buddy with electrical skills who joined my team and fixed up the shop for us. I only have the officer’s quarters left to do, and it looks like that requires another item hunt.
As near as I can tell what may have changed Chavez’s mind was that in my previous night’s playthrough I advanced both the Ray Santos and Izbee storylines. With Ray in a secure location and Izbee communicating regularly on the radio it seemed to “wake up” Chavez, especially Izbee’s quest line as now he chatters at her (via radio) whenever I have either of them as followers.
I don’t know for sure what happened, I’m just glad I can finish fixing up the base and didn’t have to kick anyone out. Food is my #1 worry right now, so it looks like I am going to build a farm in the large empty slot. I also need someone with the Computers skill, but none of the people in the enclaves I’m allied with have it, so I’m limited to three outposts until I find someone with that skill and upgrade the command post.
I bit off more than I could chew last night on a mission protecting an NPC and nearly lost one of my best survivors. Thankfully I made it to the Smashwagon and it in turn was able to navigate some shallow water out to where the NPC was trying to do their thing, so I just drove in circles around the NPC running over the zoms stepping out every so often to headshot a couple that made it through and were harassing the NPC. Made it home with one tick of health left, no meds or bandages and 75% of the way to blood plague. Good times!
The key to that WHOLE last sentence was “Made it home”… I love those moments in this game! When everything goes to pot and you didn’t see it coming. State f Decay 2 shines during these moments.
Same here. It seems like they always happen when you least expect it too, like on the task you thought was going to be an easy grab and go, and suddenly a feral or juggernaut pops up and while you’re fighting him a horde rounds the corner of a house and it’s OH SHIT time.
This game also has a weird way of providing sometimes, as if it knows what you need when you need it. Up above I mentioned food being my biggest concern, followed by needing a survivor with Computers skill to expand my command center. Last night, on a mission with Chavez for Izbee, a Network trader popped up on the map not far from the mission objective. I stopped by hoping he would have a nice gun or two to upgrade my armory, but instead he had a Network Signal Booster mod for 500 influence that adds two additional outpost slots to your base. Score!
Then, as if that wasn’t enough of a lucky find, while searching for the thing Chavez was after, I found a Computers textbook! I had one survivor left with a free skill slot, perfect. After he learned the skill I was able to upgrade the command center again to add yet another outpost slot, giving me three new ones and six total. I already have a food, power and water outpost, so I’m going to use these new slots for another food outpost (which combined with the farm should cover my daily needs) , a fuel outpost (should drop my daily use to -1) and save the last slot for one of the unique outposts scattered around the map. Just like that, in about 30 minutes, I went from scavenging to meet my community needs to having the means to become mostly self-sufficient. I love those moments in State of Decay 2 as well!
Finally finished the Homecoming (Trumbull Valley) campaign. I really enjoyed it. Lots of closure with characters from the first game and the Heartland campaign, along with some new friends. IT still doesn’t really explain what was going on at the end of the Heartland campaign though, nor does it give you any real additional insight into The Network or Red Talon. Given the radio chatter I was expecting some sort of conflict decision where I would need to pick one to ally with, but that never really happened. Once I took over the abandoned Red Talon base at the fairgrounds I never moved to anything larger. I only ran with 8 total survivors, and the Red Talon base had everything I really needed built-in, and what I still required in resources I was able to get from outposts after upgrading the command center and installing the mod to add more outposts.
All-in-all it was a fun experience with plenty to see and do and familiar characters continuing their stories from the previous campaigns that featured them. It was a nice full circle closure to the story of Trumbull Valley, and probably wouldn’t have taken that long to finish if I wasn’t one of those people who feels compelled to help every enclave I can, loot as many areas as possible, collect vehicles and otherwise engage in behavior that significantly extends the time it takes to complete these campaigns.
If you liked State of Decay 2, this is just more of the same with new story/character content and a few (mostly welcome) tweaks to the gameplay. I highly recommend Homecoming, especially to those folks who have soldiered their way through SoD 1 and Heartland and want to see what happens next.
I opened the thread because I was reminded this existed on Steam, was considering getting it but wondering if I’d love it like the first game.
I read Tom’s review again, but I was a bit scared of the possibility of there being too many improvements.
Grabbing it, thank you for the help, KOSC ;D
You may be upset to learn that there have been a great many improvements made to the game since that comment was posted in 2019! ;)
Indeed, after the last few updates I highly recommend the game. It’s a lot of fun. Take that @Left_Empty !
“Noooooo” (in an empire strikes back gif)