State of Decay. Coming to PC.

To clarify the way the death system works, when a character dies you will take control of the next available person you have become friends with. If all your friend characters die, you will then take control of any of the people at home base that could become your friend. Once the survivors at your base are all dead, a survivor will be spawned who happened to be strolling through the woods for you to take control of.

No two survivors are identical. Survivor names and skills are created anew with each new game, meaning that no two playthroughs will ever be the same.

Survivors are not infinite in number and if the player is not careful there is a chance to kill every survivor. If the player finds themselves in this situation the radio can be used to generate two more survivors at a cost of 100 influence. The survivors will also have needs if they are to live happily and get along with the rest of the community, but they do not turn against the player. The game isn't over until the last survivor falls. I couldn't find info about the total amount of survivors in the game but if you managed to kill off all of them, you're doin it wrong :D

  • Death in this game is permanent, once a character dies, they cannot be brought back no matter what.
  • Their belongings can be foraged from their corpse, but their stats & skills are lost for good.
  • When you die for the first time you unlock an achievement.
  • Morale and supplies will falter with each death, so obviously it's best not to let characters die.
 
To clarify the way the death system works, when a character dies you will take control of the next available person you have become friends with. If all your friend characters die, you will then take control of any of the people at home base that could become your friend. Once the survivors at your base are all dead, a survivor will be spawned who happened to be strolling through the woods for you to take control of.

No two survivors are identical. Survivor names and skills are created anew with each new game, meaning that no two playthroughs will ever be the same.

Survivors are not infinite in number and if the player is not careful there is a chance to kill every survivor. If the player finds themselves in this situation the radio can be used to generate two more survivors at a cost of 100 influence. The survivors will also have needs if they are to live happily and get along with the rest of the community, but they do not turn against the player. The game isn't over until the last survivor falls. I couldn't find info about the total amount of survivors in the game but if you managed to kill off all of them, you're doin it wrong :D

  • Death in this game is permanent, once a character dies, they cannot be brought back no matter what.
  • Their belongings can be foraged from their corpse, but their stats & skills are lost for good.
  • When you die for the first time you unlock an achievement.
  • Morale and supplies will falter with each death, so obviously it's best not to let characters die.

Thanks for the detailed explanation. :)
 
Perhaps...but it's the way I like to play it and it doesn't ruin anything for me. Plus in all honesty when I died this last time (and it was my first and only time so far) I died because I got bum rushed by randomly spawned zombies as well. The area was clear when I entered it after disposing of the 2-3 zombies in the building then all of a sudden at least 10-12 came literally out of no where and overwhelmed me.

SO if the game was FAIR in this aspect and the zombies that you see in an area where simply the zombies in that area and they didn't randomly spawn then I wouldn't have a problem.

Basically, if the game isn't going to be fair then why should I be expected to play it fairly? :cool:

This kind of rationalization is always fascinating.
 
People on the Steam forums are saying that there is some kind of keyboard support if you can figure out the key mapping. No idea if its true or not, just passing along info.

yea it should be possible to manually map them through the config, there's probably just no in game ui for it yet. at the very least you could use autohotkey or something to simulate controller commands, there's always a way.
 
This kind of rationalization is always fascinating.

To each his own. Don't have to be a smart ass because I do something you don't agree with. If you don't mind being screwed over in the game and losing all your progress then that's your prerogative.

yea it should be possible to manually map them through the config, there's probably just no in game ui for it yet. at the very least you could use autohotkey or something to simulate controller commands, there's always a way.

Space - A
Q - X
E - Y
LMB - B
RMB - LT
Shift - RT
T - RS
Tab - backpack
 
Perhaps...but it's the way I like to play it and it doesn't ruin anything for me. Plus in all honesty when I died this last time (and it was my first and only time so far) I died because I got bum rushed by randomly spawned zombies as well. The area was clear when I entered it after disposing of the 2-3 zombies in the building then all of a sudden at least 10-12 came literally out of no where and overwhelmed me.

SO if the game was FAIR in this aspect and the zombies that you see in an area where simply the zombies in that area and they didn't randomly spawn then I wouldn't have a problem.

Basically, if the game isn't going to be fair then why should I be expected to play it fairly? :cool:

If you were in the first town with the church you weren't a victim of random spawned zombies. There are zombies hordes that roam the town and have very good hearing. So if you used your gun they more than likely were attracted by the gunfire and killed your ass.
 
If you were in the first town with the church you weren't a victim of random spawned zombies. There are zombies hordes that roam the town and have very good hearing. So if you used your gun they more than likely were attracted by the gunfire and killed your ass.

Nah, in the next town over. No guns. I HARDLY use my guns. Think I've fired probably twelve bullets max from my Thompson.

Like for the reals...no visible zombies around the gun shop, no zombies around the area on the map...entered gun shop...killed like two zombies...no further activity...started searching the first searchable spot...dozen zombies bust through the door. They HAD to have spawned. Only explanation I can come up with.
 
Yeah, I haven't played that much but I've experienced similar things...you go up to a cabin or something, clear it out and the surrounding area, and then as soon as you start searching, even though it's not THAT loud (by the radial thing on the minimap) zombies will just appear out of nowhere and attack you.
 
Once you get used to the gameplay mechanics, you can fairly easily preempt zombie attacks. It's definitely a game where you have to pay attention to your surroundings and predict situations before they happen. In that regard, it's pretty damn awesome!

I've been really enjoying it overall. With 12hrs logged already, the game is well worth the $20. Hell, it's even better than half the crap big devs/publishers churn out these days. It really is better than it has any right to be.
 
Nah, in the next town over. No guns. I HARDLY use my guns. Think I've fired probably twelve bullets max from my Thompson.

Like for the reals...no visible zombies around the gun shop, no zombies around the area on the map...entered gun shop...killed like two zombies...no further activity...started searching the first searchable spot...dozen zombies bust through the door. They HAD to have spawned. Only explanation I can come up with.

Are you aware that searching through things with characters with low Wits stat can create a LOT of sound that can attract zombies from pretty far away?

Also, when you're in a building the minimap zooms way in so you can navigate the building, but that also means you can't see zombies on the map that are more than like 50 feet away. Also the zombies only show up on the map when they've heard you (except hordes, hordes always show up - but like I said, when the map is zoomed in it's very possible you could not have seen it at all)

I can pretty much guarantee you you made noise searching (watch the minimap, you'll see a "ping" every time you do something loud) and attracted a bunch of zombies.
 
protip: If you ever get a mission to take down a 'juggernaut' (AKA one o' them Miller boys) bring the biggest fucking gun you have. I just lost my favorite character to one of those bastards... melee can kill them but it's much safer to hit it with a large caliber gun in the head a few times. I went back with an SKS to finish the deed and take my revenge on fatty.
 
This game seems to be shaping up very nicely.... I wonder if the final version will include multiplayer? It would be very nice to work with other actual players and their random characters.
 
This game seems to be shaping up very nicely.... I wonder if the final version will include multiplayer? It would be very nice to work with other actual players and their random characters.

It will not. Undead Labs originally thought about having some multiplayer features like coop but the plans were scrapped. If I remember right I believe it was something to do with the game engine or something.
 
Undead Labs is working on a multiplayer game based on SoD, codenamed "Class 4" (SoD was called "Class 3" while in development.)

SoD was kind of like the test bed for the gameplay elements in Class 4.
 
It will not. Undead Labs originally thought about having some multiplayer features like coop but the plans were scrapped. If I remember right I believe it was something to do with the game engine or something.

Can mods be made for this game?
 
Can mods be made for this game?

Yes, but certainly a multiplayer mod would be a little far fetched.. I would just wait for their multiplayer game.

The core game files are open for editing (once you extract the .pak files) so I'm sure we'll be seeing all kinds of mods eventually.
 
Its on their website that the engine can't function with multiplayer. The sequel will have co-op.

I'm liking what I'm hearing from you guys I'm gonna get it today.
 
I bought the game and didnt have a xbox360 controller. Ended up streaming the game to my nvidia shield and can report streaming this game works perfectly and allows me to actually play it until K&M support come into play.
 
This game is quite good...I picked up a second copy for myself even though I've only got one controller to share between machines. Guns are a bit difficult to use with the controller, so KB&M will be nice.

One concern I have is that I wonder how they will do some of the controls on keyboard. Such as the ability to walk at various speeds with the analog sticks, and do the same with the car (driving slower = less noise). Plus, it seems like it will make the later perks of the Shooting skill useless (crosshair locks onto zombie heads) if you can aim with the mouse.

Really is designed with a controller in mind, but I do hate trying to aim with the analog stick.

There are also a fair share of bugs that presumably will be ironed out over the course of development, such as missions failing to complete due to NPCs getting stuck or just not moving for no reason, and weird issues with the auto-save system.
 
Yeah, I was wondering how they would tweak the shooting skill with kb/m. Maybe they could add one of those dynamic crosshairs that shows how your accuracy changes as you move and stuff, and that could improve as you get the skill up.

Semi unrelated note - maxing out revolver skill combined with one of the big revolvers (Model 29 44 mag for example) it awesome for ferals and juggernauts. +100% stopping power. Knocks regular zombies on their ass with body shots too, which is handy. Just watch out for the hordes that come swaming in from the thunderous explosions :D Actually that's one of my favorite parts of State of Decay, the massive importance of sound. Shooting a big gun is fun but it can ruin your day in a hurry if you aren't ready for the zombie swarm that will hone in on you.
 
They could do it like Mount and Blade does.

When you aim your crosshair (with low skill) has a larger cone in the middle where your bullets will hit randomly, and the higher your shooting skill the more precise your crosshair and the better precision of the bullet spread within your crosshair.
 
Thing is, the accuracy seems pretty good regardless of skill in terms if being able to aim and shoot where you want to. Given how scare ammo is I don't think I'd really appreciate a system where you might miss randomly. Might make more sense to have a weapon sway system or something, but that would suck on a controller.
 
Thing is, the accuracy seems pretty good regardless of skill in terms if being able to aim and shoot where you want to. Given how scare ammo is I don't think I'd really appreciate a system where you might miss randomly. Might make more sense to have a weapon sway system or something, but that would suck on a controller.


uh what? i have more ammo than i know what to do with. and i don't even use it except for special zombies.

i like the game as a whole but i wish there was more to do than gathering resources. the base building is fun but rather limited. and i hate getting people to join my group since they use all my hard gathered resources.
 
Yeah, I was wondering how they would tweak the shooting skill with kb/m. Maybe they could add one of those dynamic crosshairs that shows how your accuracy changes as you move and stuff, and that could improve as you get the skill up.

Semi unrelated note - maxing out revolver skill combined with one of the big revolvers (Model 29 44 mag for example) it awesome for ferals and juggernauts. +100% stopping power. Knocks regular zombies on their ass with body shots too, which is handy. Just watch out for the hordes that come swaming in from the thunderous explosions :D Actually that's one of my favorite parts of State of Decay, the massive importance of sound. Shooting a big gun is fun but it can ruin your day in a hurry if you aren't ready for the zombie swarm that will hone in on you.

That's one of the best parts, get a horde of zombies to come to you then get in your vehicle and run their butts over.
 
uh what? i have more ammo than i know what to do with. and i don't even use it except for special zombies.

i like the game as a whole but i wish there was more to do than gathering resources. the base building is fun but rather limited. and i hate getting people to join my group since they use all my hard gathered resources.

That's one of the things keeping me from picking the game up again. It's fun, but I got bored with looking for resources and stuff.
 
That's one of the best parts, get a horde of zombies to come to you then get in your vehicle and run their butts over.

ya but that gets old since there are so many. if there were about 90% less cars that would make it a treat, and you would actually want to preserve your vehicles not just crash them into every thing that moves.
 
uh what? i have more ammo than i know what to do with. and i don't even use it except for special zombies.

Yeah okay, I left for a night and now suddenly there is a TON of ammo. Before I had barely anything. And I do notice that the crosshair is fairly large and will sometimes miss, so I guess they could just have the crosshair tighten up as you gain levels in Shooting.

That's one of the things keeping me from picking the game up again. It's fun, but I got bored with looking for resources and stuff.

If you have a ton of excess influence (I do), you can just have other AI scavenge for you once you reach a location. Then you can go do whatever you want without tedious searching.
 
I do agree with ballistic90, the game does start to get a little same-y when you play it a lot. That being said, for a $20 game I think they did a brilliant job with trying to keep you occupied with many different things to do. Yes, the core game is still about scavenging and killing zombies, but they keep you busy with a decent variety of other things like escort missions, "defend and hold," random hordes that can attack your base, having to go out to find the materials for new base facilities etc. Plus the core plot missions. Another neat thing is that the game is a little different every time you play. You'll find different survivors with different characteristics/perks, and key events can play out very differently. Also it's fun to try out the different home sites. There are only 7 or 8 but they're pretty unique. For a challenge you can relocate to the Alamo restaurant in down town which is guaranteed to keep you on your toes.

I think I have about 35 hours played (between the PC and 360 versions) and I haven't completed it yet. I like to take my time, explore, find all the different guns, etc.
 
If you have a ton of excess influence (I do), you can just have other AI scavenge for you once you reach a location. Then you can go do whatever you want without tedious searching.

That's not the problem. I know there's a story, but I just didn't feel like seeing it through to the end. Also, in my game Ed is a little shit that gets angry every 5 seconds and needs someone to take him out killing zombies or else he annoys everyone and reduces morale.

I really regret saving his stupid ass.
 
ya but that gets old since there are so many. if there were about 90% less cars that would make it a treat, and you would actually want to preserve your vehicles not just crash them into every thing that moves.

Cars do not respawn.

So if you do use them a lot to take out zombies (which damages them, especially if you run over a horde or large group of zombies) you can end up with a lot less cars, especially if you use the ones near your homebase you'll have to go scouting to get new vehicles.


Later on you can get a new homebase that has a garage where you can repair your vehicles.

Also try using a vehicle against the big zombie, the "tank" like one :D, run into them with one and see what happens.
 
Cars do not respawn.

So if you do use them a lot to take out zombies (which damages them, especially if you run over a horde or large group of zombies) you can end up with a lot less cars, especially if you use the ones near your homebase you'll have to go scouting to get new vehicles.


Later on you can get a new homebase that has a garage where you can repair your vehicles.

Also try using a vehicle against the big zombie, the "tank" like one :D, run into them with one and see what happens.

Yeah, but you can park them near your base and have them repaired. There's still a lot of cars in the game, too, and you often get into a car to go back to your home base when you're in danger, so you tend to have a lot of cars surrounding it. At least I do.
 
I believe there's a radio command later that spawns you a random car...does it draw from the current pool, or does it actually spawn a new one?
 
I don't know if I've been hardened by games like Mount and Blade, Dark Souls, Skyrim, Stalker and Fallout 3/New Vegas but compared to them this game seems like a walk in the park, literally it seems zombies are no match compared to intelligent A.I.
 
Get swarmed by like 10 zombies with no melee weapon and low stamina and you'll see how tense it can get.
 
Get swarmed by like 10 zombies with no melee weapon and low stamina and you'll see how tense it can get.

and that's the part that pisses me off about this game. i climbed a tower to spot buildings and there was not 1 zombie by me when i went up i was up there for under 1 mim and i go to get down and there where 6 zombies inside the fence at the base of the tower i thew some fire crackers to try to make them go after it and all that did was bring more in to where i thew the fire crackers. i alt closed the game because i was not going to lose one of my main guys to zombies that spawn on top of you. closing the game whit out saving is the only way to play this game as i have had zombies spawn on top of me before.

other then that its a fun game for a while but gets old fast.

every time i build a building i know they need me to go get something

if i send a runner to pick up stuff and then guard him we will get attacked 100% of the time

i cant put gear into the truck/car nor drop backpacks at outpost so i have to go all teh way back to base

and the biggest is i have to do all the work the ai wont go looting for stuff on there own
 
i alt closed the game because i was not going to lose one of my main guys to zombies that spawn on top of you. closing the game whit out saving is the only way to play this game

...other then that its a fun game for a while but gets old fast.

Deciding what circumstances lead to your favorite character's death seems like a huge deterant to how much fun someone can have. Alt+tabbing seems like a cheap way to ruin a game like this
 
Get swarmed by like 10 zombies with no melee weapon and low stamina and you'll see how tense it can get.

haha yep i was out of stam and was trying to escape from the house that was being swarmed and i ran out the door right into a big fat zombie which proceeded to rip the head off my main character.
 
Get swarmed by like 10 zombies with no melee weapon and low stamina and you'll see how tense it can get.

+1

one of my characters got absolutely ripped to shreds by a horde when her axe broke on a routine trade mission
 
+1

one of my characters got absolutely ripped to shreds by a horde when her axe broke on a routine trade mission

I had one of my favorite characters literally torn in two in a death animation by one of those fat bastards. That really pissed me off.
 
i alt closed the game because i was not going to lose one of my main guys to zombies that spawn on top of you. closing the game whit out saving is the only way to play this game as i have had zombies spawn on top of me before.

I like how people are now trying to claim that cheating is the only way to play this game. Somehow I never got that thought in my head when I was playing it on the 360 months ago. I'm a PC gamer first, and I thought we prided ourselves on how much "better" we were.
 
Back
Top