PC Are all POIs going to be dungeons?

[Dimpy]

Go straight in, up the stairs, up the ladder, kill the 1-2 zeds up there and get the loot containers. Pretty equivalent to nerdpoling up to the roof and breaking into the attic now.
A simple POI = a dungeon POI + nerdpoling. At least with the dungeon POIs there’s a choice of how to approach it.

So because both methods don't require you to go through a long-winding pathway or fight a lot of zombies to get to the "loot", they are both basically the same experience? Yes, it is technically true, but on the other hand it's a dangerously shallow way of looking at the game.

 

[Jamey]

People sidestepping the gauntlet to go directly for the loot is not a reason to not have dungeon POIs. Every building offers you a choice to do it the exploration method or the direct method. Remember the old houses in Diersville? Go straight in, up the stairs, up the ladder, kill the 1-2 zeds up there and get the loot containers. Pretty equivalent to nerdpoling up to the roof and breaking into the attic now.
As soon as we have simple POIs without blind corners and tight quarters all you have is the direct method.

A simple POI = a dungeon POI + nerdpoling. At least with the dungeon POIs there’s a choice of how to approach it.

As for why POIs are being redone it is because they are getting ready to go gold and they have more block shapes, decorations, and textures than they had when the POIs were originally made so they can make them to look more pleasing.

I’d prefer if they focused some time on making more generic POIs that are interesting without making them linear dungeons. I like the dungeons, but I’d also like more houses that are just a normal house with some zeds.

 

[Roland]

So because both methods don't require you to go through a long-winding pathway or fight a lot of zombies to get to the "loot", they are both basically the same? Yes, it is technically true, but on the other hand it's a dangerously shallow way of looking at the game.

How is it shallow? TFP have designed POIs that can be “won” in different ways depending on your mood/preference. What is shallow is arguing to not have dungeon POIs simply because people are offered the choice to explore them or bypass them.

On the one hand you have people asking for simplistic POIs and on the other hand people asking to land claim dungeons to force people through the gauntlet. Those are the shallow requests because they seek to prevent player choice. The unclaimed destructible dungeons can be experienced in lots of ways and no one should feel guilty about using the properties of crafting and destroying in a voxel world to get to the loot room in whatever manner they please.

Keep those dungeons coming TFP!

 

[Roland]

Simple POIs can also have corners and tight quarters and you always have choices of how to approach prefabs. The advantage of non-dungeon prefabs is that they aren't trampling on the credibility of game world.

Hmm?

That boot is probably so big and heavy because of the 10 tons of concrete being carried in the backpack just out of the picture....

Gameplay > realism and those dungeons are dang fine gameplay.

 

[Pille]

Gameplay > realism and those dungeons are dang fine gameplay.

Yes and realism != credibility. I am not sure why you mention realism in the first place. Anyway, the first 3 or 4 dungeon POIs may be interesting, but then you can see through the repetitive design patterns. It's always the same.

I mean there must be a furniture factory that delivers their closets with free zombies inside. There's no other way I can explain where these identical looking zombie-infested closets found in most dungeons come from.

And why do we have a loot room at the end of almost every dungeon? Is the story of this game about a strange reality show where the participants get a reward when passing a prefab? That would also explain the flashlights lying around pointing the way to the end. Apparently, we're playing a game show candidate who is not the brightest bulb in the box since we can't find the way without hint lights ...

Where are the hybrid prefabs being partly a conventional POI, partly a dungeon? Why is there almost always only one way per building and only a few optional rooms? Why are the dungeons constructed according to the same simple scheme? It's always a repetitive and very artificial cocktail of collapsing floors and zombies jumping out of the same predictable hiding places. How low are your standards considering this as 'dang fine gameplay'?

 

[Dimpy]

How is it shallow? TFP have designed POIs that can be آ“wonآ” in different ways depending on your mood/preference. What is shallow is arguing to not have dungeon POIs simply because people are offered the choice to explore them or bypass them.
On the one hand you have people asking for simplistic POIs and on the other hand people asking to land claim dungeons to force people through the gauntlet. Those are the shallow requests because they seek to prevent player choice. The unclaimed destructible dungeons can be experienced in lots of ways and no one should feel guilty about using the properties of crafting and destroying in a voxel world to get to the loot room in whatever manner they please.

Keep those dungeons coming TFP!

We've always had the choice of how to explore POIs. The difference in A17 is the most important choice is the in-your-face, binary, and immersion-breaking question of whether to go the intended route or break into the loot room.

What I was saying was shallow and dangerous was considering this choice as the only one that matters, to the point where the experience of cheesing a dungeon and going through a "simple" house normally can be considered "pretty much the same thing".

 

[Ianua]

SNIP!...
As for why POIs are being redone it is because they are getting ready to go gold and they have more block shapes, decorations, and textures than they had when the POIs were originally made so they can make them to look more pleasing.

OMFG did you just say "they are getting ready to go gold..." I just wet myself. Roland, can I have your babies?

 

[Roland]

Don’t get too excited. It might take about as long to have a baby as it takes for them to actually go Gold.

 

[Roland]

Yes and realism != credibility. I am not sure why you mention realism in the first place. Anyway, the first 3 or 4 dungeon POIs may be interesting, but then you can see through the repetitive design patterns. It's always the same.
I mean there must be a furniture factory that delivers their closets with free zombies inside. There's no other way I can explain where these identical looking zombie-infested closets found in most dungeons come from.

And why do we have a loot room at the end of almost every dungeon? Is the story of this game about a strange reality show where the participants get a reward when passing a prefab? That would also explain the flashlights lying around pointing the way to the end. Apparently, we're playing a game show candidate who is not the brightest bulb in the box since we can't find the way without hint lights ...

Where are the hybrid prefabs being partly a conventional POI, partly a dungeon? Why is there almost always only one way per building and only a few optional rooms? Why are the dungeons constructed according to the same simple scheme? It's always a repetitive and very artificial cocktail of collapsing floors and zombies jumping out of the same predictable hiding places. How low are your standards considering this as 'dang fine gameplay'?

We've always had the choice of how to explore POIs. The difference in A17 is the most important choice is the in-your-face, binary, and immersion-breaking question of whether to go the intended route or break into the loot room. What I was saying was shallow and dangerous was considering this choice as the only one that matters, to the point where the experience of cheesing a dungeon and going through a "simple" house normally can be considered "pretty much the same thing".

The problem for both of you is that you look at the dungeon POIs as a linear pathway. I don’t see them that way at all. I see them as cluttered buildings. Sometimes I go along the path but just as often I’ll break through a doorway and go a different way and sometimes I’ll break in at the roof sometimes a side window and sometimes through the “intended opening”. I’m sorry you are playing these dungeons in such a way that they are not fun for you or you’ve analyzed them to death memorizing the most efficient and quickest way through to the point that they are tedious for you.

Don’t be mad at me because I find them fun. You can call me shallow or low in my standards but My viewpoint means I get to keep having fun as TFP continues to create POIs that aren’t largely empty shells...

 

[Pille]

Not following the intended path doesn't make the lack of variety and the design flaws disappear. You'll still encounter cheap traps consisting of zombies falling from a ledge at the ceiling and you'll still fall through the floor due to intentionally collapsing structures. It doesn't make the flashlights disappear which are there because of reasons. You still have loot rooms because of reasons (unless you want to tell me that you're going to ignore the loot).

Sure you can make your mental egg-and-spoon races and tell us how fun everything is and that we just have to simulate LBD or, in this case, simulate non-linear paths through the prefabs. Or you can look at the situation realistically and see that's not a good idea to pave the map with dungeon POI's.

Don’t be mad at me because I find them fun.

Don't worry I am not mad at you since your reply seems to be widely unrelated to my comment. Btw. must be very convenient for a moderator to always be so in tune with TFP's decisions. I hope someday you come to your senses realizing that you don't have fun! Hopefully it won't be too late!

Not everything I write is serious. The part about prefab variety, however, is. If the fun pimps decide to heavily rely on dungeons, they should make them more diverse from a gameplay point of view (Dead serious).

 

[AtomicUs5000]

While some POIs shouldn't have as many sleepers as they do, some POI's like the movie theater should have 100.

 

[Feycat]

The obvious solution is to turn off loot respawning.

We've got loot respawn turned off in our game. It still respawns every time someone takes a quest in that building. It completely resets the building.

 

[Ianua]

Don’t get too excited. It might take about as long to have a baby as it takes for them to actually go Gold.

I am assuming you are referring to the 2 year gestation period of elephants...

- - - Updated - - -

We've got loot respawn turned off in our game. It still respawns every time someone takes a quest in that building. It completely resets the building.

That isn't a bug, it is an "undocumented feature"

 

[Roland]

Not following the intended path doesn't make the lack of variety and the design flaws disappear. You'll still encounter cheap traps consisting of zombies falling from a ledge at the ceiling and you'll still fall through the floor due to intentionally collapsing structures. It doesn't make the flashlights disappear which are there because of reasons. You still have loot rooms because of reasons (unless you want to tell me that you're going to ignore the loot).
Sure you can make your mental egg-and-spoon races and tell us how fun everything is and that we just have to simulate LBD or, in this case, simulate non-linear paths through the prefabs. Or you can look at the situation realistically and see that's not a good idea to pave the map with dungeon POI's.

Don't worry I am not mad at you since your reply seems to be widely unrelated to my comment. Btw. must be very convenient for a moderator to always be so in tune with TFP's decisions. I hope someday you come to your senses realizing that you don't have fun! Hopefully it won't be too late!

Not everything I write is serious. The part about prefab variety, however, is. If the fun pimps decide to heavily rely on dungeons, they should make them more diverse from a gameplay point of view (Dead serious).

I completely agree with you that they should try and achieve more diversity. That’s exactly why they should add more dungeon POIs and do different things with them so that there is greater variety. I’m not arguing against improving them and adding more.

Interesting that you tied this in with LBD as it seems this is an issue with those who can’t be anything less than maximumly efficient. I’m not that way so could care less about catering to that mindset. I’m not somehow “forcing” myself to not follow the most efficient pathway—I just don’t play that way so it’s not bothersome like it is for you and others.

Personally I don’t like the flashlights and lamps giving ridiculous hints and I’ve been vocal about that. I think the floors that cave in are legit awesome and the fact that zombies can fall from an elevated position amazing. There needs to be more diversity to the closets but they are merely a start. It’s the first release with them. We only had spikes for a long time before additional traps were introduced. Hidden loot behind walls and in floors and rooms guarded by a “boss” enemy doesn’t bug me personally. <shrug>. I’d rather there be a challenge and reward than....just an empty room for the sake of one guy’s sense of “credibility”.

You are implying (and have before) that I’m simply being a yesman for all the decisions of the devs. If that is the way you feel you must dismiss my opinion then so be it. Please feel free to ignore me. But I know it isn’t true and it won’t stop me from sharing my opinion.

I sincerely generally like the dungeon POIs and really do want them to continue to add them so there is more variability and exploration. I’m also for improving the design of them although I don’t agree with you in all aspects of what would constitute an improvement and I suspect that will be true all along the spectrum of player preferences—there may, in fact, be some who LIKE the “lighted path”.

But I categorically disagree with anyone whose “solution” is to stop making more dungeon POIs.

 

[Slingblade2040]

I whined about this on the alpha 18 dev thread. I'm fine with the answer. More of both and hopefully yes more traps or other nonsense in the dungeons to make them more entertaining. I don't mind somw cheap trap or fall away floor aslong as it doesn't lead to instant death, but gives me somewhat of a fighting chance to survive that trap. Also I really want to see the return of high rise dungeons and maybe some Biome specific dungeons especially for the wasteland along with those land mines being taken out of the wasteland. I enjoy the wasteland but I really feel the landmines ruin it alot.

 

[Damocles]

What I find most immersion breaking is not so much the dungeon nature of the POIs. People could have still build it this way.

Its the use of flashlights and active fires.

The immediately says "artificial for gameplay" and rips the player out of the immersion.

There should be no powered devices, lamps or burning fires in the gameworld. Everyone is dead. There would be no working powergrid, and the battery-lights would have run out of energy long ago, and zombies dont light up barrels to warm up brains.

 

[Roland]

What I find most immersion breaking is not so much the dungeon nature of the POIs. People could have still build it this way.Its the use of flashlights and active fires.

The immediately says "artificial for gameplay" and rips the player out of the immersion.

There should be no powered devices, lamps or burning fires in the gameworld. Everyone is dead. There would be no working powergrid, and the battery-lights would have run out of energy long ago, and zombies dont light up barrels to warm up brains.

+1. I agree completely.

 

[Dimpy]

The definition of I've been using of "Dungeon POI" is a POI whose central design tenet is to make the game feel as much like a combat-focused dungeon crawler as possible. This contrasts with other possible design philosophies such as trying to make it feel realistic/credible or using procedural generation.

What I don't get is why the dungeon crawl design philosophy is considered "superior". What would we really lose if the blockades, the holes in the walls, the unstable floors, the secret stashes, and the rare loot crates were placed randomly instead of "strategically"?

 

[Pille]

I completely agree with you that they should try and achieve more diversity. That’s exactly why they should add more dungeon POIs and do different things with them so that there is greater variety. I’m not arguing against improving them and adding more.

They already had the means to make the dungeons more diverse and interesting when they released A17. Not sure if the 'that's the first release' argument works here (I knew you would use it). Having more dungeon POI is ok to me but you should mention that they also could modify existing ones to add diversity. That's why it's not 'exactly why they should add more'... Anyway, there's still hope that there were reasons for the monotonous homogeneity. Reasons that no longer exist in A18.

Interesting that you tied this in with LBD as it seems this is an issue with those who can’t be anything less than maximumly efficient. I’m not that way so could care less about catering to that mindset. I’m not somehow “forcing” myself to not follow the most efficient pathway—I just don’t play that way so it’s not bothersome like it is for you and others.

I am not a player who is constantly seeking for maximum efficiency and I wasn't thinking about efficiency when I was talking about LBD (even though finding optimal loot paths and similar stuff make for interesting math problems^^). No, I was rather thinking about the idea that you have to invent your own ruleset to make the game fun. Since you often must make additional efforts to not follow the given path, this can be considered to force yourself by all means.

Personally I don’t like the flashlights and lamps giving ridiculous hints and I’ve been vocal about that. I think the floors that cave in are legit awesome and the fact that zombies can fall from an elevated position amazing. There needs to be more diversity to the closets but they are merely a start. It’s the first release with them. We only had spikes for a long time before additional traps were introduced. Hidden loot behind walls and in floors and rooms guarded by a “boss” enemy doesn’t bug me personally. <shrug>. I’d rather there be a challenge and reward than....just an empty room for the sake of one guy’s sense of “credibility”.

Who is this guy who you are talking about and how can you know that it is just 'one'? Well at least we've found some points we agree on.^^

You are implying (and have before) that I’m simply being a yesman for all the decisions of the devs. If that is the way you feel you must dismiss my opinion then so be it. Please feel free to ignore me. But I know it isn’t true and it won’t stop me from sharing my opinion.

I can't remember that, sorry but I am not surprised. Ofc you try to hide your yesmanism by occasionally disagreeing with TFP about rather non-essential things. Even if I wanted to (that's not the case), it would be hardly possible to ignore you because of your constant presence. As all commenting users you're affecting the direction the threads are going. Therefore it does not make much sense to me to ignore others. And why should I ignore you anyway, because you have a different opinion?

I sincerely generally like the dungeon POIs and really do want them to continue to add them so there is more variability and exploration. I’m also for improving the design of them although I don’t agree with you in all aspects of what would constitute an improvement and I suspect that will be true all along the spectrum of player preferences—there may, in fact, be some who LIKE the “lighted path”.

But I categorically disagree with anyone whose “solution” is to stop making more dungeon POIs.

It's not that I don't like them (For instance the Higashi tower is by far my most favorite A16 POI). Just don't like the way there're implemented, their immersion-breaking artificiality and frequency of occurrence.

 

[Roland]

They already had the means to make the dungeons more diverse and interesting when they released A17. Not sure if the 'that's the first release' argument works here (I knew you would use it). Having more dungeon POI is ok to me but you should mention that they also could modify existing ones to add diversity. That's why it's not 'exactly why they should add more'... Anyway, there's still hope that there were reasons for the monotonous homogeneity. Reasons that no longer exist in A18.

Well it could be that they are dismally uncreative and lacking in imagination. It could be that they got in a rut and just went with one theme. It could be that this is the first real crop and they will diversify from here. I would be happy for them to improve existing POI's AND add more. Again, my only disagreement with this thread was with those wanting more simple POI's. I mean talk about monotonous homogeneity almost every pre A17 house could be dealt with by standing in the doorway and shooting all the zombies all in plain view in the mostly empty rooms.

I am not a player who is constantly seeking for maximum efficiency and I wasn't thinking about efficiency when I was talking about LBD (even though finding optimal loot paths and similar stuff make for interesting math problems^^). No, I was rather thinking about the idea that you have to invent your own ruleset to make the game fun. Since you often must make additional efforts to not follow the given path, this can be considered to force yourself by all means.

I can see that my old thread about consciously doing repetitive actions before spending points in that area must have really gotten under your skin. That was more of a refutation to people who claimed that they wanted learning by doing purely for the immersion factor instead of the speed leveling factor. I've never played that way nor do I seriously expect anyone to play that way. You can just let that go Pille. The only thing I "often make additional efforts not to do" is to not nerdpole.

In this situation I am honestly telling you that I do not force myself to refrain from taking the intended pathway. I do what I feel like at the time and sometimes that is chopping through a door and sometimes it is going through that hole in the wall that a lamp is lighting up. I really do just see the house as cluttered and not set up as a maze that I must follow and since I have the means of breaking through wherever I wish and craft ladders and frames to get up to new places I utilize all of that. For example, there is one POI I have encountered several times. It is a group of 3-4 stores--bookstore, carpet store, something else, and a diner. I have approached that POI in different ways every time entering at different points and fighting/stealthing my way through differently each time.

I can't remember that, sorry but I am not surprised. Ofc you try to hide your yesmanism by occasionally disagreeing with TFP about rather non-essential things. Even if I wanted to (that's not the case), it would be hardly possible to ignore you because of your constant presence. As all commenting users you're affecting the direction the threads are going. Therefore it does not make much sense to me to ignore others. And why should I ignore you anyway, because you have a different opinion?

Why should you ignore me? Because you think I'm merely a shill for the company. You just said as much again here where you still assume that I am a shill but just trying to hide it by occasionally disagreeing on non-essential things. This isn't a matter of having a difference of opinion, this is about integrity and motives. Why would you want to read and react to someone you believed was dishonest and trying to influence public opinion in a manipulative manner?

My assumption is that you find my arguments compelling and have no other option except to discredit them as TFP's "talking points" they pass out to their employees each morning. My further assumption is that you are sadly like other critics who cannot comprehend that the world is more diverse than themselves. To you something IS objectively bad for everyone and that those who claim that it is good cannot possibly actually believe it to be so (since you don't) and therefore they must either be lying, or they are fanatical fanbois, or they haven't really applied any real intelligent thought to the subject.

Sorry, my friend. Sometimes the truth is simply that people like things that you don't because they aren't you and there is no nefarious purpose to their not liking what you do or liking what you don't. I generally like how the dungeon POI's are implemented (with a few exceptions) and I want more and yes, I would love improvements (as long as that doesn't mean no false floors or zombies dropping from above). That is my honest opinion.

Does that happen to align with what TFP is planning? Yes, and thank God because it means I'm going to get what I want.

It's not that I don't like them (For instance the Higashi tower is by far my most favorite A16 POI). Just don't like the way there're implemented, their immersion-breaking artificiality and frequency of occurrence.

Are you sure you aren't some anti-TFP agent from a competing company who tries to hide your antagonism by occasionally saying nice things about non-essential things....?