KickStarter Dead State Pre-Release Discussion [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Trash]

I only played the start / first day to not spoil it for me. It has strong points (base building, group management, survival), but I'm sceptical about the zombies. I was missing a stealth mechanic to avoid a larger zombie group. I have the impression that you will not see a lot of zombies, only some small groups which pop up here and there depending on your noise level.

Zombies grow in number regarding the area you're in and they can really swell to a mob when you're attracting too many of them through noise. Not to mention that those they kill also rise up as undead. You can btw sneak up on lone zombies. They did this pretty well as far as I'm concerned.

Another thing that bothered me was that you can't talk with looters. It's instant fight of life and death. This bothers me the most bacause they said they want to focus on the human relationships.

Still, I'm really looking forward to it.

Early beta had little to no interaction. They did however promise that later betas would have more of it. With npc's, events on maps and factions and all. Would be disappointed if they never did implement this.

 

[Zombra]

Another thing that bothered me was that you can't talk with looters. It's instant fight of life and death. This bothers me the most bacause they said they want to focus on the human relationships.

Well, it was always the intention that you couldn't befriend every human in the game. The fights with zombies are supposed to be less challenging; it's when humans attack that it's supposed to get hard. In terms of story, there are plenty of survivors for whom all trust will evaporate immediately and an "every man for himself" mentality will emerge. That said, there is still a ton of dialogue and interactivity with the scripted shelter characters.

 

[Morkar Left]

Zombies grow in number regarding the area you're in and they can really swell to a mob when you're attracting too many of them through noise. Not to mention that those they kill also rise up as undead. You can btw sneak up on lone zombies. They did this pretty well as far as I'm concerned.

Maps just looked a bit too empty for my taste, especially downtown I would have expected a lot of zombies (a lot = pack of 20). I guess the engine can't handle this much, but I hope you're right.

Well, it was always the intention that you couldn't befriend every human in the game.

That I'm aware. But I find it a bit strange that you can't talk to them at all, no intimidating, no info gathering, no trading, no tributes, no robbery etc.
Sure, some will attack you on sight when you stumble over them, but if they are outnumbered 3 to 1 it would be in their best interest to talk or at least trying to flee. I just found it a bit blunt in a zombie game that focuses on human relationships to have your generic evil orcs aka looters who are just there to kill.
But I don't want to diss the game. It's very promising and I'm really looking forward to it (backer), I just wish that they kept such interaction in mind even by generic looters and it's only missing in the beta.

 

[Crooked Bee]

I hope the fact that the game releases in one month already doesn't mean they want to pull a Jagged Alliance: Flashback. Now that'd be a shame.

 

[Infinitron]

So is this game, like, any good, or like, what?

Like nobody knows yet.

Except Morgoth and Agentorange who can't stop praising it but nobody notices

Game will be good. I've sunk a good deal of time into the pre-release thing.

Typical codex faggots are blind to the existence of a decent game because there is no 1000 page thread filled with pedantic nitpicking and troll baiting.

 

[sser]

Surprised this wasn't on sale for the Halloween event.

I hope the fact that the game releases in one month already doesn't mean they want to pull a Jagged Alliance: Flashback. Now that'd be a shame.

Does the game feel that unfinished? I've almost bought it at least five times but always sway away.

 

[Crooked Bee]

I hope the fact that the game releases in one month already doesn't mean they want to pull a Jagged Alliance: Flashback. Now that'd be a shame.

Does the game feel that unfinished? I've almost bought it at least five times but always sway away.

I only played the earliest EA version, and that one was very barebones. Could be that they've improved on that, of course.

Still, I'd wait and see before purchasing it myself.

 

[Stainless Veteran]

Well, I played it for 20+ hrs now, and I don't think that it would be good from storyfag perspective.

They still could tweak combat, making it more varied and challenging, also shelter management aspect is interesting. But there's two huge negatives right now: lack of randomization in crises and other gameplay elements, and, more importantly - pretty damn bad writing. Dialogues are shitty, also they aren't reactive enough. Overall tone of protagonist's lines is really strange - I mean, you almost always have kiss-ass normal option, histrionics option, and Bioware renegade-like option, only while it's aggressive, its often impractical. Characters seem really cardboard, and on this stage of development it sure won't change. So while it still could be a good combatfag game, it really won't become a good storyfag game.

 

[RedScum]

Well it has improved quite a lot since the earliest EA version.

 

[Zombra]

Well, it was always the intention that you couldn't befriend every human in the game.

That I'm aware. But I find it a bit strange that you can't talk to them at all, no intimidating, no info gathering, no trading, no tributes, no robbery etc.

If they stuck to what they were planning, there will definitely be non-ally groups that you can negotiate with out there. But you can't strike up a conversation with every Joe Psychopath. Go play Day Z for a while, you'll find plenty of people who shoot first, even nice people who are only worried that you will if they don't. It's really not that unrealistic, or in any way wrong for the genre perspective they're trying to create.

Sure, some will attack you on sight when you stumble over them, but if they are outnumbered 3 to 1 it would be in their best interest to talk or at least trying to flee.

I agree, but that calls for fairly complex AI ... it's kind of beyond scope to give every single human encounter in the game several possible resolutions. It's OK for some doods to just be bad guys.

I just wish that they kept such interaction in mind even by generic looters and it's only missing in the beta.

Don't hold your breath.

I hope the fact that the game releases in one month already doesn't mean they want to pull a Jagged Alliance: Flashback. Now that'd be a shame.

What, the old "welp, we ran out of money so let's push this out the door"? I honestly don't think there's much danger of that. I haven't really been paying close attention honestly, but they seem to have a pretty solid plan and the patch updates have been very encouraging. Full Control seemed like they were scrambling all through development. Maybe I'm biased.

 

[Roguey]

They mentioned a few months ago that they had to release it by the end of this year no matter what. They didn't get loads of money from Kickstarter nor EA, and it's been a year since their initial release date (and as I mentioned earlier, 29 months since the end of the Kickstarter), so yeah, they very are likely out of money. Much like Jordan, Swen, and the other Brian.

New intro sequence isn't tied properly to start of the game, one minute you bash zombie on a head, another - you're in shelter and you don't believe in zombies.

 

[Zombra]

True, but I'm actually heartened by the fact that they went a year over. Flashback was released a month before its original estimate.

 

[SuicideBunny]

Spoiler

still very unfinished. lots of areas have either unconnected lower/upper levels or doors that are impassable once opened, no enemies or anything else for that matter, and other stuff. it's really noticeable that they are churning out stuff at highest speed...
writing is still terrible p. much everywhere.
the rest is shaping up nicely, but release will be buggy as hell, which i think will hurt the game overall.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

As a committed storyfag I'm hoping for some good quests and an interesting story arc. Brian Mitsoda should be able to deliver on that, surely.

 

[TheEntitledOne]

I never realy saw a dangerous group of zombies in the game (30+ days). A couple of well equiped melee specialists can clean any map of zombies.

The only time I saw something close to a horde was when I visited the RPGcodex. After the usual shotgun fight over the definition of RPG tranny porn atracted the zombies I was the one that had to deal with them.

But overall 2 melee guys with big axes and 2 ranged with 7.62mm rifles can clean almost anything with little strategy.

 

[SuicideBunny]

As a committed storyfag I'm hoping for some good quests and an interesting story arc. Brian Mitsoda should be able to deliver on that, surely.

the writing is really bad, don't expect much. as for quests, so far there is no story to speak of, and quests are short or longterm shelter goals, with a few exceptions. there's supposed to be some metaplot told by data you sometimes find, but that seems unimplemented as of yet, as all the data turns out corrupt for me.

edit: after countless hours and visiting farms in all the corners of the world, i finally found a chicken (required to build chicken coop). the chicken got killed when i returned to base, because i had no chicken coop.

 

[Pony King]

A game that primarily advertised itself based on shelter and survival mechanics has most of its attention focused on the quality of its writing, that is likely meant to be WIP. I'm getting a hunch that Mitsoda has been heavily typecast (or the game dev. equivalent).

Anyhow, it seemed fun when I went in with expectations of its beta nature. I do have my doubts whether this translates into a finished game that can be fun for more than thirteen hours. I'd have given them my thoughts but then I met their kafka-esque forum and did a prompt 180.

For the people who hope for Bloodlines 2, you should know that the style of writing is significantly different. Bloodlines IMO had a very cartoony vamp flick style that is completely absent form Dead State. In this game the characters seem more grounded and "earthy", whether that is good or bad depends on execution, and running out of money makes betting on execution a losing strategy.

 

[Haba]

Never bet on a SJW.

Though I do find it hard to gloat at the impending failure of this.

 

[DeepOcean]

Is the writing bad because the characters are whinny, over agressive and douchebags for no reason like Walking Dead?Is interesting conflict of interests on the game or is just YOU SPILLED MY MILK, I GONNA LEAVE over reaction? Are the characters flat, with no personality? Can you raid places with some backstory about them or it's just generic convenience store or generic parking lot? Brian told of the dilemma of you raiding an hospital or not for supplies as it was a really dangerous place with ALOT of zombies, are ultra dangerous areas on the game?

I feel sad for this game, the concept looks entertaining but, so far, I didn't see any compelling reason to buy it.

 

[SuicideBunny]

A game that primarily advertised itself based on shelter and survival mechanics has most of its attention focused on the quality of its writing, that is likely meant to be WIP.

for it to be work in progress they would require time to actually work on it, which they don't have. the game comes out in a month and a half, and there is a shitton of work to be done. around 2/3rds of the maps i went to had different issues like impassable doors after being opened, noninteractive stairs that should lead to upper or lower levels but didn't, no interactive objects or enemies on the entire map, enemies in unreachable areas (due to impassable door frames or just being dropped in a fenced area that has no way of being reached), the roof on a barn no being blended out (which leads me to believe that they are making roofs blendable manually), and other stuff. there is a bug that prevented me from being able to travel from the shelter at all, when i saved on a blue area, so i had to use a trainer to unlock the ability to travel at all. the first crisis meeting i had worked fine, the second one (coyotes) was broken and showed a synopsis first, then didn't transition scenes properly and was all kinds of fucked up (and after i killed the coyote leader regina came the day afterwards to tell me where their hideout was, lol). allies tell you to go to places you already went to with them, and to build shelter upgrades you already built. after you rescue the radio host, he is still playing on the radio. there is a scientist in a friendly camp you can try to convince to join you, but the conversation just loops back to initial state after you get permission for her to leave from their leader. there is no metaplot via data in the game, which means it has probably still to be written. shelter jobs that give buffs aren't implemented, some shelter upgrades aren't implemented, car upgrades aren't implemented. there are layering issues that draw characters on different floors on top of the current one, and will sometimes let you interact with objects on different floors as well.

in short: they don't have the time for the writing to be work in progress.

 

[Elhoim]

I never realy saw a dangerous group of zombies in the game (30+ days). A couple of well equiped melee specialists can clean any map of zombies.

The only time I saw something close to a horde was when I visited the RPGcodex. After the usual shotgun fight over the definition of RPG tranny porn atracted the zombies I was the one that had to deal with them.

I designed that one

 

[Elhoim]

there is no metaplot via data in the game, which means it has probably still to be written.

It's written and in the game already, but there was an issue in the code that we couldn't fix for the latest patch.

 

[SuicideBunny]

It's written and in the game already, but there was an issue in the code that we couldn't fix for the latest patch.

are you aware of the map issues with blocked doors/unreachable stuff, or would it help if i made a list?

 

[Elhoim]

It's written and in the game already, but there was an issue in the code that we couldn't fix for the latest patch.

are you aware of the map issues with blocked doors/unreachable stuff, or would it help if i made a list?

In general we are aware, especially the levels without stairs or enemies (and it's something easy to check and fix), but it would be really helpful to have a list of doors that don't make the tiles passable. That's really hard to see when editing the levels, since you have to manually check each door coordinates.

The barn roof was an issue with the houses and levels with basements, I'm fixing that in the pass I'm doing.

If you want, post here any bugs you find and I'll pass them to the guys. Please make sure they are reproducible in Update 4, we've been fixing things non-stop. Thanks!

 

[TheEntitledOne]

Also, I don't like how noise works right now.

Let's say that there is a big group nearby, and I bash a door somewhere close. A zombie will aproach, and ONLY one. Seems like each time I do it I get the same result. Shouldn't bigger numbers aproach?