[IOTD] Suggestions

So, Im the first person to post here. Lets try to keep this orderly. If you're gonna drop suggestions, please make sure it hasnt already been suggested. Keep it short to the point. I am sure having to read all the suggestions is tedious enough, without having to filter through all the crap.

suggestions

1. Have camera lock onto the boat while the boat is moving; helps people figure out what the hell is going on.
   
2. Figure out a better system for the beginning of game. Too many guns, too many options and not enough money for all of the options, makes people think way too hard. Perhaps categorize the weapons a little better..? seperate them into houses according to the type of ammo? Maybe by price. Melee. Etc.
   
3. I thought that the abilities for each hero seemed kind of silly. Maybe make all of the skills a little more appropriate for the game play, rather than just having the standard. For example, I played the scout, and I found his abilities not all that useful, maybe adding to the 'upgrade hero' list might make your hero more 'custom'.
   On a side note, I am not sure if its a glitch in the game, but it wouldnt let me upgrade my 'scout abilities' (eg. my item locater thingy)
   

Its a super cool idea. Needs refinement obviously; its an alpha test. Im interested to see where this bad boy goes.
Cool Beans.

Alright.

I will start small ^^ perhaps only allow one mission at a time (not sure if it already works like that) but when you have a mission the ship automatically takes you to that location and while the ship is moving have the player camera center on it as it moves through the water so people dont get confused as to where they are ^^

Possibly also make ammo prices a little bit less to start off with just so some of the more expensive guns (1700/1800) can actually have ammo when you start ^^ lol

Have camera lock onto the boat while the boat is moving; helps people figure out what the hell is going on.

I will make so the host can choose if the players should follow the boat or now. Since it'd only be annoying for better players that know the game.
But if that's not liked I'll probably make it forced.

Figure out a better system for the beginning of game. Too many guns, too many options and not enough money for all of the options, makes people think way too hard. Perhaps categorize the weapons a little better..? seperate them into houses according to the type of ammo? Maybe by price. Melee. Etc.

Yeah, I've though of that aswell. I will fix that when I get the time. But it doesn't feel like it's the most urgent thing to do.

I thought that the abilities for each hero seemed kind of silly. Maybe make all of the skills a little more appropriate for the game play, rather than just having the standard. For example, I played the scout, and I found his abilities not all that useful, maybe adding to the 'upgrade hero' list might make your hero more 'custom'.

Well obviously you never got to use his real skills and only the two standard Aiming and Run. These are the abilities that are not class specific. The reason that I cannot add the skills to the unit itself is that I would have to make one variant of weapons for each class. Like if there is 15 different weapons and 5 different classes I'd have to make 15*5 units which is 75 units, and that's a tad to much.

On a side note, I am not sure if its a glitch in the game, but it wouldnt let me upgrade my 'scout abilities' (eg. my item locater thingy)

The will unlock every 3 levels, level 1 at level 3, level 2 at level 6 etc...

Its a super cool idea. Needs refinement obviously; its an alpha test. Im interested to see where this bad boy goes.
Cool Beans.

Thanks. I'll whisper you when we do more tests or you can just check the alpha tester thread if you wanna know the dates and time etc.

Eulogy wrote:Alright.

I will start small ^^ perhaps only allow one mission at a time (not sure if it already works like that) but when you have a mission the ship automatically takes you to that location and while the ship is moving have the player camera center on it as it moves through the water so people dont get confused as to where they are ^^

Possibly also make ammo prices a little bit less to start off with just so some of the more expensive guns (1700/1800) can actually have ammo when you start ^^ lol

1:I probably won't make it one mission at a time. But maybe a "Shop" where you decide where to go and you will see the ship move there?
2:I will make the starting money a little higher I think. Since I noticed no one could afford ammo.

only a few things for now.. will add more later after playing again..

1.Spelling error I noticed for the Sawn off shotgun you forgot an F Not a big deal dun't care too much about spelling just noticed it

2. Maybe make everything smaller for the future so that you can have more locations/missions

3. Perhaps Zombies should roam different places and have more spawn when you do end up entering a area

4. Map is viewable if your dead... this could be a good or bad thing

5.medics skills need reworked Bandages dun't work. Neither does medkit

So far map idea is GREAT (: Keep up the great work it's looking like it will be an amazing map

I think the map was only viewable because he used some code to be able to view the entire thing

Yeah I think maybe 2500-3000 would be suffecient for the start of the game but maybe also add a 2-5$ kill bonus for zombies? or would this make a player earn too much.. I dunno just an idea ^^

Yea you do run out of ammo REALLY quickly. perhaps the ship should have a merchant or two as well

Just a quick thought about ammo. You could have different ammo types. Let's say you got the normal 12G shells and 12G incendiary shells (which makes stuff burn) and 12G explosive shells (which could be more effective against armored enemies or it could main the targets).

The basic ammo would be rather cheap and gives you no damage bonus. Better ammo is more expensive and should be used carefully, but grants you higher damage or passive skills (such as making stuff burn when you hit it).

Proxy wrote:only a few things for now.. will add more later after playing again..

1.Spelling error I noticed for the Sawn off shotgun you forgot an F Not a big deal dun't care too much about spelling just noticed it

2. Maybe make everything smaller for the future so that you can have more locations/missions

3. Perhaps Zombies should roam different places and have more spawn when you do end up entering a area

4. Map is viewable if your dead... this could be a good or bad thing

5.medics skills need reworked Bandages dun't work. Neither does medkit

So far map idea is GREAT (: Keep up the great work it's looking like it will be an amazing map

1: Fixed.
2: I have very much space left for more locations so don't worry. We visited like 4 places before we died. And there is at least 9 cities and big places and 5 or 6 smaller places like survivor camp etc.
3: I guess you mean that the should be some initial zombies in every area? and that just when you get there there spawns very much? Or do you mean different zombies roams different areas?
4: I wrote a command for debugging.
5: Fixed.

Eulogy wrote: Yeah I think maybe 2500-3000 would be suffecient for the start of the game but maybe also add a 2-5$ kill bonus for zombies? or would this make a player earn too much.. I dunno just an idea ^^

Yeah, I'm gonna raise the starting money by 1000 per difficulty level. So now Normal = 3k, Hell = 4k and Nightmare = 5k.
But I don't like the idea of getting money from zombies. Maybe I add a little system so there is a rare chance when a zombie dies he drops some dollars like he had that in his pockets or something. After all it is dead people.

What do you guys think of adding a little items to zombies for them to drop? Like bottles of water and sandwiches etc... I'd like to hear your thoughts about that.

s3rius wrote:ust a quick thought about ammo. You could have different ammo types. Let's say you got the normal 12G shells and 12G incendiary shells (which makes stuff burn) and 12G explosive shells (which could be more effective against armored enemies or it could main the targets).

The basic ammo would be rather cheap and gives you no damage bonus. Better ammo is more expensive and should be used carefully, but grants you higher damage or passive skills (such as making stuff burn when you hit it).

Yeah, that might be nice, but I don't have so much control over the ammo system because someone I know made it for me. <_< (Hello s3rius)
But sure it might be a possibility. since I like the idea much. But in the end I don't think it's that hard to make.

Yea you do run out of ammo REALLY quickly. perhaps the ship should have a merchant or two as well

Well maybe there is a merchant that comes onto the boat after some missions. Who know... who knows?

Lisianthus wrote:
Yeah, I'm gonna raise the starting money by 1000 per difficulty level. So now Normal = 3k, Hell = 4k and Nightmare = 5k.
But I don't like the idea of getting money from zombies. Maybe I add a little system so there is a rare chance when a zombie dies he drops some dollars like he had that in his pockets or something. After all it is dead people.

What do you guys think of adding a little items to zombies for them to drop? Like bottles of water and sandwiches etc... I'd like to hear your thoughts about that.

I think zombies shouldn't be dropping too much. One out of 40 zombies or so.. You can add dollars as an item that spawns randomly, have it earned as a reward and stuff. Maybe some grunty old guy gives you money for each zombie you killed. You just have to return to him once in a while.
You could also add some expensive items which sole purpose is to be sold to make some money.

s3rius wrote:

Lisianthus wrote:
Yeah, I'm gonna raise the starting money by 1000 per difficulty level. So now Normal = 3k, Hell = 4k and Nightmare = 5k.
But I don't like the idea of getting money from zombies. Maybe I add a little system so there is a rare chance when a zombie dies he drops some dollars like he had that in his pockets or something. After all it is dead people.

What do you guys think of adding a little items to zombies for them to drop? Like bottles of water and sandwiches etc... I'd like to hear your thoughts about that.

I think zombies shouldn't be dropping too much. One out of 40 zombies or so.. You can add dollars as an item that spawns randomly, have it earned as a reward and stuff. Maybe some grunty old guy gives you money for each zombie you killed. You just have to return to him once in a while.
You could also add some expensive items which sole purpose is to be sold to make some money.

How can you always make a such good ideas....

You know me. I'm just plain awesome

Wow... this is like... what i have dreamed of my entire life... a zombie RPG with saveable guns and attachment!!!!

just some questions about the game first beffore i start belting out the ideas like i did for dotd lol.

-Shops-
are the shops and stuff in the towns or in like a large military installation?
problems with towns:
- i find it hard to beleive that villagers in europe would be able to provide high grade military ammunition and weapons.
- all the ammo would be homemade out of shrapnel and the weapons wouldnt be of high quality.
- the villagers wouldnt be able to provide something like... a SCAR-11 rifle or a BARRETT .50Cal or anything for the higher levels/ranks (which brings me to the next question...)

-Ranks or Levels-
does the game incooperate Ranks like DOTD and then save them (and each character starts at lvl 1 every game), or does it have actual character levels that are saved like The Black Road ORPG etc.?
- personally, i like the idea of starting at level 1 every game, but having ranks give bonuses to health/int/agi etc. and also using ranks instead of lvl requirements for weapons etc.
- the higher level areas (as i assume there are) would just be off limits to under ranked soldiers (which brings me to my next question...)

-Command Structure-
Is there any form of command or organisation behind these guys arriving at Europe?
- probably be better if there was (like a worldwide resistance group like the one from the Terminator movies)
- this would help the new players to understand the point of the game and also add some missions and stuff here and there. (example like a first mission to find a town or installation where more mission are)
- would also allow the higher ranked players to use special abilities only available to ranked officers in a mission etc. (which then follows to my final question...)

-Classes-
IS THERE GOING TO BE MORE CLASSES MADE??
- part of the reason i play games like DOTD and NOTD is cause you can get ranks and get new classes as a reward.
- however, with weapons and stuff being saved, that would become real messy if you loaded a sniper and chose like a MG lol.

once i know about the game i can spam so many ideas you wont keep up with them =)
i agree this could be one badass game if it is done right
absolutely brilliant idea

When I said #4 I wasn't clear, My apologies. Each area starts out with roaming zombies because thats what zombies do is roam.. and when you enter that area you attract those zombies so then more zombies start spawning because they too are attracted.

I like the idea of doing a mission to possibly get a Merchant aboard the ship.

Zombies dropping random items would be good However would need to put an item clearing trigger or the pile up of unused items will lag the game.

Big_Red wrote:Wow... this is like... what i have dreamed of my entire life... a zombie RPG with saveable guns and attachment!!!!

First of all, this is still very early Alpha, so there is no saves YET. and secondly. I'm not sure if you will save the weapons you find. But maybe.

just some questions about the game first beffore i start belting out the ideas like i did for dotd lol.

-Shops-
are the shops and stuff in the towns or in like a large military installation?
problems with towns:
- i find it hard to beleive that villagers in europe would be able to provide high grade military ammunition and weapons.
- all the ammo would be homemade out of shrapnel and the weapons wouldnt be of high quality.
- the villagers wouldnt be able to provide something like... a SCAR-11 rifle or a BARRETT .50Cal or anything for the higher levels/ranks (which brings me to the next question...)

Well I'm thinking of having a few traveling merchants that can sometimes be in the cities. But there will not be any permanent shops in cities that are under infection.
I'm totally aware of villagers not being able to make their own weapons and ammunition. But have it ever crossed your mind that there might be weapon freaks in some cities. And maybe the military set some defenses in the city but became overrun and then their weapons have been spread through the cities. Since it's been like 3 weeks the infection started in US. and maybe the infection started lot earlier in Europe? But still it's true what you say. And I probably will make so that the weapons and ammo spawning in cities will only be for basic weapons like old shotguns and rifles. But there may be some few high power weapons spread out in the world. But mostly to get the weapons you want you have to purchase them.

-Ranks or Levels-
does the game incooperate Ranks like DOTD and then save them (and each character starts at lvl 1 every game), or does it have actual character levels that are saved like The Black Road ORPG etc.?
- personally, i like the idea of starting at level 1 every game, but having ranks give bonuses to health/int/agi etc. and also using ranks instead of lvl requirements for weapons etc.
- the higher level areas (as i assume there are) would just be off limits to under ranked soldiers (which brings me to my next question...)

You see, I'm planning to make ranks and stuff for save. But at the moment there are no saves at all whatsoever. Of course I will add saves that allows you to save rank or something. (Savable cookie points XD) There will probably be rank requirements and class requirements to use certain weapons. For example only a high ranked player who plays with the heavy support class can use the minigun.
About the higher level areas, There are none yet. But there is an active level scaling in each city that changes the difficulty of the zombies after the levels of the players and the amount of players playing.r
But yes, there probably will be area limitations for some danger zones, as I plan to reconstruct the traveling system ATM. but remember. THIS IS STILL A TEAM GAME, you just won't make it on your own.

-Command Structure-
Is there any form of command or organisation behind these guys arriving at Europe?
- probably be better if there was (like a worldwide resistance group like the one from the Terminator movies)
- this would help the new players to understand the point of the game and also add some missions and stuff here and there. (example like a first mission to find a town or installation where more mission are)
- would also allow the higher ranked players to use special abilities only available to ranked officers in a mission etc. (which then follows to my final question...)

There is no command behind their arrival at Europe.(They just fled.) BUT I don't wanna spoil to much of my plans either. But I'm sure you will come to like my ideas for the main quests. But you should play a round or two and then I'm sure some of your questions here will be clearer. There will probably be skills that are unlocked with higher ranks. But there is no such thing at the moment.

-Classes-
IS THERE GOING TO BE MORE CLASSES MADE??
- part of the reason i play games like DOTD and NOTD is cause you can get ranks and get new classes as a reward.
- however, with weapons and stuff being saved, that would become real messy if you loaded a sniper and chose like a MG lol.

Yes, I'm planning on adding more classes to the game. But as I said before, you probably won't be able to save your weapons.

once i know about the game i can spam so many ideas you wont keep up with them =)
i agree this could be one badass game if it is done right
absolutely brilliant idea

But let me get one thing clear. This is VERY early alpha stage. and the first closed tests were just 2 days ago.
And if your interested in testing then sign up in the Alpha testing thread. There is two test today. One 16:00 GMT +0 and one 22:00 GMT +0

Okay, we died pretty early but there are a few things I realized.

-There are to many fucking zombies^^

- The items model's look really ugly

-The cam is to close, increase the hight plz or let the players choosew the height themselves.

Thats it for now.

Asgard_Ragna wrote:Okay, we died pretty early but there are a few things I realized.

-There are to many fucking zombies^^

- The items model's look really ugly

-The cam is to close, increase the hight plz or let the players choosew the height themselves.

Thats it for now.

1: I know, In the future the zombies will become better instead of more of them.
2: How do you mean?
3: I will make it settable.

im glad you chose to do ranks instead of levels, cause levels would be just wierd lol

as for the military installments in the cities, i like the idea of the soldiers making a stand in a village, but maybe even add another area to the map as well/instead that was a military base or something which then holds all the kick-ass weapons. would make for a fun mission, infiltrate the military base to extract intel or something. (be like Dino-Crisis 2 except with zombies that eat your brains instead of velociraptors that cut you to peices lol).

damn at not being able to save weapons =(
im yet to see a game in the zombie killing business that you can gain ranks in, save a character and then load your weapons and any attachments in. the idea is good, but frought with problems lol. there would have to be some system to save your rank THEN your class so you could have your rank for the next game if you wanted to play a different character, but that becomes uber messy lol

idea is epic i like the idea of an island instead of a huge sector.
id love to be part of a testing game, but the problem is if you guys are in europe then ill have to pull a whole night-er cause im down in AUS lol.
ill jump in a test one day soon lol are they held on USEast or Northrend?

Dino Crisis was awesome

The problem I see about saving equipment is that
1st) You need a damn lot of items because naturally you want the chance to find better items all the time.
2nd) What you said about classes suddenly have inapropriate weapons.
3rd) You couldn't play it with a mix of noobs and pros anymore, because all the pros have the awesome big gunz (thus the zombies need to be stronger or they travel to more dangerous areas) and the noobs with their BB guns will have a hard time surviving.

s3rius wrote:Dino Crisis was awesome

The problem I see about saving equipment is that
1st) You need a damn lot of items because naturally you want the chance to find better items all the time.
2nd) What you said about classes suddenly have inapropriate weapons.
3rd) You couldn't play it with a mix of noobs and pros anymore, because all the pros have the awesome big gunz (thus the zombies need to be stronger or they travel to more dangerous areas) and the noobs with their BB guns will have a hard time surviving.

True. + With saving equipment and what not that does mean your save code is going to be epicly long right?

Proxy wrote:
True. + With saving equipment and what not that does mean your save code is going to be epicly long right?

Not really, as you can only have 6 items, and lets say you give each item a number. From 00-99. That will be like 12letters for the items. Well I guess some consider that a long code.

Werrl add the other things that will be saved and you'll end up with like 18 digits. Now it's starting to be long.

maybe reduce the amount of items that can be saved? like only first 2 slots of your inventory.

this would work well if you implemented that combining system you had for the scope and the rifle in DOTD 5.x

for example, you buy/find a SCAR 11 Ass Rifle, you go to the merchant/military installment and find/buy say an ACOG Scope, the two items bind into one item in your first inventory slot. you then find/buy an M203 Grenade Launcher, the rifle and scope combination then combine with the GL and you get an item that has increased firing rate, increased damage and the ability to fire a grenade now (with a cooldown or ammo system).

The damage multipliers for the weapons wouldnt have to be high lol. i more like the idea of having weapons and/or atachments or items that increase fire-rate like the SCAR does in 6.0, movement speed maybe for some special boots or armour system lol, armour increases and mana increases and EVEN THEN they would be minor increases, just things that make it a touch easier to play and make you a cut above the rest for having a high rank.

anyone can get a high rank by playing enough and then choose the higher ranked officers and think they are awesome. a REAL pro would build up his inventory with some good items that improve the classes he likes to play and items that best suit that class.

the problem comes when you load your code and choose an MG or a Sniper when you previously had a Rifleman, the weapons would no longer be compatible with the sniper.

*EDIT* - I HAVE A POSSIBLE SOLUTION TO THIS PROBLEM OF CLASSES!!!

ok so heres an idea i just got from playing and old school game of TBR lol

in TBR 1.3x you have a load code for your character, and then a load code for your *bank*

if you put this in perspective for IOTD, you would have:
- Load code for your rank
- ability to choose W/e class you wanted at the start of the game
- then Seperate codes for items you wanted to load.

the alternative to seperate load codes for weapons is to attach the load codes for weapons to the rank code and then have a pop-up menu at game start for choosing certain weapons to be used in this particular game.

if you made it so that a player could only load 2 items per game then they would be able to select the apropriate items from their Weaponary and then use them on the character. this would remove the complication of loading a assault rifle for a sniper, as the sniper class cant use it. all that happens is that when they load the assault rifle, the item immediately drops from their inventory and says *cannot be used on sniper class*
this way the player still has the ability to keep the customised weapons he/she has made, and is able to pick and choose from a range of items.

the problem that then arises from this is how many items can you save to a single rank code??

this can be solved by making only a small range of weapons and calling them [i]unique items that can be saved. as when you combine two items together, the game triggers the two items replacement of a single item, there shouldnt be any problem with long load codes for customised weaponry (whether within the rank load code or seperate). you would end up with (12 digits for base load code + (number of unique weapons you have, i.e. give it a value of 0 for not having the weapon, 1 for having it so it would be like: -load Wef453-Ls6Hs-101101 (depending on how many unique saveable items you had).

you would then input after choosing your class a load code for the actual weapon i.e.
-Load Hx12i - loads a machine gun with all atachments you had etc.

the last part of the rank code controlling whether you can actually load that particular base unique item is crucial tho, because it would keep a record of whether you actually HAD the weapons from the last game. as in, you wouldnt save your weapons one game and then play another, save and not be able to load them again.

(wow long, see wat i mean i rlly belt out the ideas lol)

Big_Red wrote:Big red's long text

Hey, I’m also a part of the team/group whatever who makes this map, but I haven't been very active on this forum, but that will be changed. I’m not the one who does all the coding, so I can't tell you what's possible and what's not, but I can give you my opinion: I think that the idea with different codes for different things is good, because then u could have one inventory save with like chainsaw and some armor, and one with a sniper and a laser sight and so on. but, I also think that the host should be able to select if he want to let the players load weapons or not, and how many inventory slots and so on, so when u save, u save all of your weapons, but u might not be able to use all of them another time. Because then wouldn’t like everyone start with the best weapon in the game from the beginning, as long as the host don't let you do it. I hope you get my point.

alibababert wrote:
so I can't tell you what's possible and what's not..

Everything is possible if you put enough dedication to it. That applies to more than just map making.

Remember that you cannot break up a code of 20 digits length into two codes with 10 digits each. The more codes you have the more digits you need.

A nice idea imo:
Have one save code which saves your character's specifics (rank and stuff).
Have one save code which saves inventory. You can save as many items as you want to (well, maybe a limit of like.. 8 ). (However, the more items you save the longer your code will be). This code is your "armory". You may chose a random equipment from that armory after you selected your hero.

For example your save code contains a Sniper Rifle, a Shotgun, a Kevlar armor and a pricey hand bag made of crocodile leather.
You load your armory and character codes, then select a Sniper as your class.
Now you want to pick an item from your armory - you can select the Sniper Rifle and the Kevlar. The Shotgun and the bag are considered melee weapons, though, and you cannot take them.

This way you can let people chose how much items they want to save without having them write down a single code for every item. Also you can control how long your save code is. Some people might not have a problem with 30-digits save codes. Maybe other people will just play one class so they don't need more equipment.

Save codes could look like this:

-armorload fT34gt This code just contains a shotgun (and required information to make the save code save)
-armorload fT34gt-aHrZ We add our Sniper Rifle..
-armorload fT34gt-aHrZ-1337 .. and the pricey hand bag.

Edit: I took 4 digits per saved item. If you consider the possible signs (a..z,A..Z,0..9) we got 62 of them. If we got a max. of 61 possible items we'd only need a single digit. With 2 digits we could already save one out of 3843 different items. With 4 that'd be.. 16777215 ^^