PC Challenge Ideas

M

Max Headroom

New member
So my friends and I have been doing a ~No Trader playthrough. I'm interested in other challenges.

I've tried a horde every night. Sort of "One Day to Die". Found it very hard to progress after the first game week. Your focus is always on surviving the next night.

I've tried perma-death which is interesting but not really suited to team-play. Unless you declare the game over when the first member dies. 

What other ideas do you have?

 
I will sometimes play what I call a "Sprint." The idea is I want a quick game that I can play in a night or over a weekend.

I make a world, start the game, use godmode to teleport myself to a corner of the map, then turn off godmode. My goal is to get to the opposite corner of the map in some amount of time, often 2-3 game days. I want the time to be enough that I need to worry about food/water and face a tough choice about what to do during the night -- do I hunker down and hide, or do I try to make progress.

There can be other interesting choices. For instance, do I spend time looking for a cooking pot? Hunting while traveling is easy enough, but being able to cook the food and boil water is handy. Where do I find water? If its the Vanilla game, how much time do I spend searching POIs for water? Do I want to spend time looking for better tools?

What skills would you take that are different than normal? Is Iron Gut more useful now? Maybe reduced stamina loss from running would be handy.

If you want a longer spring, spawn in, try to reach all four corners of the map, and then get back to the starting point -- kind of like if somebody inserted you via helicopter, you're scouting, and then need to get back the LZ for a pickup. Give yourself BDUs and maybe a gun with a couple of clips of ammo, maybe some rations.

 
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A challenge I propose is called "The Trader's Gambit" (placeholder name). The TL;DR is it a combination of Nomad (living out of your backpack and vehicle storage, and you can only stay in a POI for one day/night before you must move) and horde night every night, with an added twist involved. Every day, you must return to your trader and select a quest. Whichever POI you select to be sent to is where you must hold down the horde at. If you want to remove player choice entirely, use a program to pick between 1 and 5, there are a few online that I know of. Rinse and repeat until you die.

Encouragingly, you are only allowed to complete one quest a day. The rest of the day can be dedicated to resource gathering, upgrading your POI base, and looting elsewhere.

Additionally, you have to use the existing shape of the original structure. This means no building pathway bases on the side of a building, or a wall surrounding the perimeter.

 
Max Headroom said:
"No Horde Base" might be interesting. Emphasis would be on stamina and parkour, lite or no armor.
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That is fun. I play that way a lot. Just take on the horde in the street. It's a good time. You can even do it with a bow. Bring coffee. I recommend the trait that lets you reload on the move.

 
zztong said:
If you want a longer spring, spawn in, try to reach all four corners of the map, and then get back to the starting point -- kind of like if somebody inserted you via helicopter, you're scouting, and then need to get back the LZ for a pickup. Give yourself BDUs and maybe a gun with a couple of clips of ammo, maybe some rations.
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Ooh, I like that a LOT!

Thanks.

 
zztong said:
That is fun. I play that way a lot. Just take on the horde in the street. It's a good time. You can even do it with a bow. Bring coffee. I recommend the trait that lets you reload on the move.
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I have a saved solo game in which I just happen to have the Forgetin Elixer and a Tactical Machine Gun. I should be able to max out parckour, Run-N-Gun, Machine Gunner and Stamina.  :D

 
Something I have done is remove horde nights altogether and have Khaine's wandering horde modlet installed.  It changes how often the hordes can spawn and how big they are.  It has made some interesting times doing a trader mission only to have a large wandering horde come into the POI you are trying to clear out.  You also have to protect your main base (if you have a separate horde base) more.

Another variation was Khaine's modlet and setting bloodmoons to every 10 days.  The wandering horde changes keep you on your toes, so having 10 days (instead of 7) doesn't really make it that much easier.

Personally, I been playing more No repairs on equipment allowed which changes how you approach each day.  You got to plan out resources to replace your gear constantly while also planning for a future horde night.  It doesn't do any good to use all of your forged iron or forged steel for base upgrades if you go into the horde night with damage guns that will only last one hour into it.

 
Honestly, given how rare steel tool parts are, I don't know how you can really do no repair.  It's usually weeks after I can make max level steel tools before I have enough to make an axe, let alone a shovel (though why would you?), and forget ever making a ratchet.

I guess if you use the chainsaw/auger it might not be so bad (those parts seem much more common) but I hate them and never use them except sometimes the auger if I need to remove some concrete/steel blocks I don't want where they are anymore.

 
Vaeliorin said:
Honestly, given how rare steel tool parts are, I don't know how you can really do no repair.  It's usually weeks after I can make max level steel tools before I have enough to make an axe, let alone a shovel (though why would you?), and forget ever making a ratchet.

I guess if you use the chainsaw/auger it might not be so bad (those parts seem much more common) but I hate them and never use them except sometimes the auger if I need to remove some concrete/steel blocks I don't want where they are anymore.
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Sometimes you have to use a lower tier item to get by.  You don't have enough parts for a steel axe, make an iron axe.  Or with the new crafting system, you can either use an iron axe until you have enough parts to make a new steel axe at the highest quality you can craft - or you craft a lower quality steel axe based on the # of parts you have.

 
BFT2020 said:
Sometimes you have to use a lower tier item to get by.  You don't have enough parts for a steel axe, make an iron axe.  Or with the new crafting system, you can either use an iron axe until you have enough parts to make a new steel axe at the highest quality you can craft - or you craft a lower quality steel axe based on the # of parts you have.
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I suppose.  I just go through tools at a voracious rate (usually multiple repairs per trip) so I'd basically never have access to the best tools I can make, which I would find pretty frustrating.  I'd totally be willing to do it for weapons (maybe not armor...military armor parts are abundant, but steel armor parts are also super rare in my experience) but tools would really bug me.

 
If you're going to do challenges that can funnel you down a path of unsustainability, you might consider altering your toggles to change your day/night scale accordingly.  In addition, id encourage you to play around with your loot percentage and trimming player block damage to whatever fits your goals.

 
I just started 1.0, and I started playing in the last Alpha. Had my first death today, and thought I should implement SOME sort of challenge or penalty for it. I don’t want to do perma-death because I don’t really get to play all that often and that would be such a waste. I decided on having the consequence be that each death means that I have to move my home and base into the next hardest zone. If I die in each of them in turn, then my death in the Wasteland would become permanent. I might also put in something to move up in zones after “x” amount of game stage, as well, just in case I never die again. 

 
The enemy of challenge is predictability. If you have a single plane
and switch things around all that comes out to is a familiar sliding
tile puzzle. Same picture different location.

Most challenges that I have read thus far are self imposed.

Turning up the speed, "reminds me of a Benny Hill skit".

Tuning up the zombie difficulty just goes back to an ironic set of
heated discussions in the forum. When TFP gave entities extra HP
they were called bullet sponges; Among other not so nice names.

So I started observing and writing down the familiarity things.

Some things; Safe on entry to game, Weather not engaging for 24 hours
game-time, Trader progression, entity limited differentiation. This
is just to name a few of the more notable ones. These are posted
statements thread discussions i've seen and read.

The challenges I create for my self are: Lessening the size of biome
coverage, instead of a single biome covering a quadrant it is way thinner.
This means you have to either take a roundabout route, or take chances
crossing hazardous biomes to get to safety again. Reduced Vehicle friendly
roads, so I have to huff it to most places, this prompts a habitual change
and needed protection before going.

Multiple entity clones, created in entityclasses and added to entitygroups.
They look the same but have variable responses, strengths, and weaknesses,

so predictability is out the window.

Give each biome an imminent threat entity, burnt=Dogs, Desert=Ungimped Vultures
that attack on sight. They aren't bullet sponges, but they aren't one hit wonders
either. Wasteland All bets are off, meaning everything is there. Snow is the mountain

lion. And because forest is thinner than on prior map configurations, snow and burnt

entities sometimes transgress the forest.

Spawnpoints: This I had to do with premade maps, they are in precarious and
potentially dangerous locations. Examples are a cathedral steeple, an apartment on
the top floor of a skyscraper, the bowels of a 5 skull POI. An apartment roof just outside

of sensitivity range of the sleepers near me. All of these are NOT in the forest. This

combination kind of overrides the safety net for doing the challenges then reaching the

first trader. Inspirations came from: TWD, 28 days later, Predators the plane drop.

Limited visibility, pois in the distance are silhouetted or obscured by weather or terrain

until I get closer. In the forest the grass is Eye level, so I feel fortunate if I find a
treetrunk, or a birds nest, or a rock, or when hunting to find felled game in the tall grass.

I can hear zombies but I can't just see them and snipe them from yards away. It brings more

melee into play, as a necessity, and listening through headphone to hear not always see where

danger is. Don't just use fog, Using the particle storms, Higher wind variances, and spectrums
other than Biome. change the view and the feeling of the play-field.

AI: Circle of life make everything go after everything else, unless the player is
there.

That just some of the things you could add.

 
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Try various adaptations of things your survivor might suffer from.

One handed.  Your survivor lost an arm.  No 2-handed weapons/tools, unless they could reasonably be used by a one-armed person.  Like a shovel.  Much harder, but can be done.  But no auger, chainsaw, sledges, 2-handed axes, steel pick, etc.

Deaf.  Just play without sound.  You can't hear things aggro, you can't hear zombies coming up behind you, can't hear blocks being broken.  Realize how important sound design is in survival games.

Claustrophobe.  Don't go into small spaces (3x3 or smaller), or maybe buildings at all if you want to be extreme.  Make your base fairly open.  No underground anything.

 
stample said:
One handed.  Your survivor lost an arm.  No 2-handed weapons/tools, unless they could reasonably be used by a one-armed person.  Like a shovel.  Much harder, but can be done.  But no auger, chainsaw, sledges, 2-handed axes, steel pick, etc.
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Can they reload guns?

 
Of course, it just takes longer, and probably not while running?  But there are limits here, that I don't want to mod for the sake of the challenge.  Personally, I just stick with pistols for this challenge.

 
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