Kyoji
Survivor
The gaming loop in 7D2D isn't as good as it should be and while ambiguous I am referring to the gaming loop of quest, run to quest, complete quest, return to trader and turn in quest followed by rinse/repeating. Now to be fair that isn't all there is in the game. That being said I think at the fundamental level the player is incentivized into that gaming loop.
The problem:
So with the possible solutions we have added more randomness in the world with encounters and remnant POIs. We have added more exploration with decoupled cities and random events. We have enhanced the gameplay loop by allowing more freedom on how to tackle POIs while also encouraging proper exploration of the POI. Lastly, we have attempted to shore up pitfalls of the changes by adding modifiers to quest rewards based on distance and have added more of the smaller cities to compensate for the lack of larger ones.
I won't say that any of these ideas are perfect or even good, but I wanted to get a good discussion going on how we can make the general gameplay loop more engaging, fun, random and encourage exploration. These were my ideas, what are yours? Thanks for reading.
The problem:
- Quests - They are repetitive by nature and are very rewarding to the point that not doing quests is actively detrimental to your progression within the game. combined with purchasing from traders and the currency gained through quests it creates a positive feedback loop.
- POI Design - The dungeon-style POIs while very fun and engaging they also lead players along a mostly linear path and after a while you remember various loops and lose the fun of exploring and when combined with loot rooms where a majority of the loot is centralized in one area makes it harder to hinder players from just rushing the loot room.
- Tiles/Cities - I for one love the tile/city rework from 1.0 and think it made the game far more lifelike and engaging, but it came with a cost. For starters these larger groupings of buildings lead to resource overflow. To make a long story short, you have a lot of places to find what you need and you are rarely left without the ability to find the missing resources you need which leads to people camping in cities and not exploring outside within the world unless specifically directed to by a quest.
- 7 Days to Die - I know right. Let me explain. When you combine the fact that you are rewarded for questing through the rewards at the end as well as the same loot you would of found in the POI anyway and traders giving you even more items through dukes earned through questing with the fact you have to prepare for a zombie tower defense style invasion within 7 days it skews the concept of "well just don't quest". In other words, you are actively putting limitations on yourself before the 7 day period and are more encouraged to maximize efficiency for the event.
- Remnant POIs (Quest Fix) - We have had a lot of extra remnant POIs added into the game and they are largely ignored. I think making remnant POIs more interesting to visit would, in conjunction with other solutions, help break people away from the questing loop. Increasing loot availability and added danger would help. Bandit encampments, random infested remnant POIs with vastly boosted rewards, etc are a few things off the top of my head, but generally the idea is that rewards, loot and a fun experience drive gameplay and in order for remnant POIs to be something other than a building you will never visit they should offer some practical value.
- Random Encounters (Quest Fix) - In conjunction with remnant POIs offering equal value/time spent as compared to quests there could also be the addition of random encounters. The general idea is to utilize the new Flatspot code TFP have been developing to identify flat spots in the terrain to dynamically add events on the map around the player. As a practical concept this means that while running in the wilderness hunting for honey you might come across a crashed helicopter that was spawned in randomly by the game code. This could be done by checking whether there is a player within "x" meters and then whether there is "x" amount of minutes passed since the last random event and whether there is a flat spot of terrain large enough to spawn in the dynamic item. Generally speaking the system could be governed by tiles so that flat terrain in a city might spawn smaller things like bandit checkpoints dynamically added to block roadways whereas the wilderness could be a crashed helicopter, plane, bandit encampment, etc. To summarize the idea is to reward players for exploring and not just focus on questing or at the very least breakup the monotony of going from one quest to another by offering side adventures you can undertake as they dynamically spawn. When combined with the Remnant POI glow up it makes exploring more engaging and beneficial outside of just simply questing without minimizing it.
- Open-Ended POI Design (POI Fix) - At the very least any new POI coming into the game should have multiple ways of progressing through the quest. It's fine to have a single entryway for a quest marker's sake, but once inside there should be more unlocked doors and less blocked areas to create a more open-ended dungeon style rather than a closed-ended one where there is only one path. There may have to be creativity involved for some of it but that can be achieved through various hazards such as fires that need to be put out (we currently have this already) where the nozzle is on one side and the fire is on the other to force players to go through a majority of a POI to reach the end loot cache. That being said I have another alternative that could work as well if not better...
- Spreading the Loot (POI Fix) - It's no surprise what people are hunting for inside POIs. It's the store crates, ammo/gun bags and end of the POI loot. Want to develop less linear dungeon POIs, but don't want people to get easy loot? Stop putting everything of value inside store crates and loot rooms. Spread out the loot within the POI. Have gun bags hidden inside cabinets and various tools lootable in the basement and garage, etc. Let's not try and guess why there is a massive pile of loot in one room stored in crates waiting for you to pick it up. Spreading out good loot within a POI and adding more containers within will make it less a smash and grab. I know there is probably some dopamine hit when you get that final loot stash, but I think it's hurting POI design.
- More localized tiles (Tiles/Cities Fix) - As I previously stated I love the new tile designs and think cities and roads look better than ever. That being said I think we can keep a portion of that while also allowing for more exploration and less centralized loot. In a nutshell towns need to be extricated from rural and both towns and rural from cities. Instead of rural bleeding into a housing development which then leads into commercial/industrial I think separating them would be nice. That is to say you separate tile groupings to either rural/housing or commercial/industrial and have roads leading in and out. So imagine a central commercial/industrial hub and off that hub you add spokes with groupings of either rural or residential housing developments leading into the main city. The gap between the spokes can vary but should have minimum and maximum road distances set for optimal placement. This would increase travel time a bit as a side effect, but essentially it better diversifies the loot and potentially allows for cities to become even more dangerous than they are without that bleeding too much into the relatively safer rural and residential zones.
- Smaller cities (Tiles/Cities Fix) - If you want to encourage exploration of the wilderness while maintaining the amazing concept of tiles there should be smaller cities overall in the game but more of them. Instead of a city consisting of hundreds of POIs perhaps you reduce the scale of each actual city. The exception I think would be the Wasteland where you could get the "Wasteland City" as described in the XML for a much larger city with much greater danger and could also be used to encourage people to venture into the wasteland and it should be a singular large city. If you combine this with more, but smaller, cities spread throughout the zone you encourage people to venture into the wilderness in search of another town to scavenge leading to more exploration outside of a singular city and perhaps have more engaging encounters with other aforementioned fixes.
- Distance Modifier (Tiles/Cities Fix & Traders Fix) - I would be remise if I didn't acknowledge the potential pitfall of having to venture further for quests so I think distance should be a modifier for rewards. If a tier 1 quest were to give you 15 rounds of ammunition then the same quest that is over "x" distance should give 15 + "x" where "x" is the distance modifier that you can set to a scale. 1k-2k would be maybe an extra 5 rounds, 2k-3k would be 10 rounds extra, etc. These are rough examples but generally speaking it would make even quests further away beneficial rather than just accepting the closest one and speed running it.
So with the possible solutions we have added more randomness in the world with encounters and remnant POIs. We have added more exploration with decoupled cities and random events. We have enhanced the gameplay loop by allowing more freedom on how to tackle POIs while also encouraging proper exploration of the POI. Lastly, we have attempted to shore up pitfalls of the changes by adding modifiers to quest rewards based on distance and have added more of the smaller cities to compensate for the lack of larger ones.
I won't say that any of these ideas are perfect or even good, but I wanted to get a good discussion going on how we can make the general gameplay loop more engaging, fun, random and encourage exploration. These were my ideas, what are yours? Thanks for reading.
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