If you're on PC, you can change the look of your survivors with the save editor tool. Have all the skull and animal hoodies your heart can handle!
(I may or may not have used said tool to make sure all my characters are in varying degrees of pink clothing...)
Yeah I need to actually buy the game now that I've thoroughly rented it via GamePass on Xbox. PC will definitely be the way to go there I think, if for no other reason than the potential modding goodness.
I like to think my little communities go on to thrive thanks in no small part to my brutal hardline stance on never recruiting/keeping anyone with even the faintest hint of a negative trait. What's that, you're bringing us -3 Morale because you're scared to sleep alone? Well guess what sunshine, you'll have plenty of company sleeping out with the zeds, out!
It does make me wonder whether there's a limit to how many former community members can be saved on one profile, though, because each time I start a new game there are each and every one of the members from my prior communities still selectable. I'd think that would start to take a toll on memory/performance after a while, no?
There's QoL improvements and bug stuff. Highlights include:
Vehicles will now be teleported by the "Stuck?" radio command.
Salvaged weapons now return their ammo to your Supply Locker instead of destroying it.
The Supply Locker is now automatically sorted by item type. Additionally, the Ranged Weapons tab has the option to sort by either ammo caliber or weapon type.
Players can now use the Workshop facility to repair or salvage equipped weapons, rather than having to drop them into the Supply Locker first.
Proximity mines are no longer triggered by players or by friendly NPCs.
Players can now improve their Close Combat Specialization skill*.
Balance Stuff too
When you abandon an outpost, you’ll be refunded only 60% of the original influence cost, instead of 100%. This increased investment in an outpost is intended to make it feel like a significant choice by the player, rather than an easily swapped “loot-drop” location that drastically alters the overall experience.
Best improvement:
Explosives now set off other nearby explosives, such as land mines. Have fun with that;)
edit: *CCS would improve very slowly or you had to use the training facility to bump it up at a normal pace.
[*]The Supply Locker is now automatically sorted by item type. Additionally, the Ranged Weapons tab has the option to sort by either ammo caliber or weapon type.
Oh thank god.
When you abandon an outpost, you’ll be refunded only 60% of the original influence cost, instead of 100%. This increased investment in an outpost is intended to make it feel like a significant choice by the player, rather than an easily swapped “loot-drop” location that drastically alters the overall experience.
Awesome! That 100% refund thing bugged the heck out of me. Now outposts will be slightly less exploitable.
I like to pretend the silence in this thread is to prevent zombies from spawning behind you in your home base.
Patch 4.0 is up!
A major feature of this patch as far as QoL goes is how random resource loss/gain works:
Characters and Communities
Random “resource loss” events are now dependent on morale and traits. If you recruit carefully and keep everyone happy, then random resource losses should be a thing of the past.
Characters who incur “resource loss” events because of low morale will now receive a temporary morale benefit for doing so. IE, they binged on a bunch of food, but at least it made them feel better.
Skilled characters will now sometimes provide the community with new free items in place of the “resource loss” events.
Random surprise:
Armored zombies are no longer killed by flames. Instead, they catch fire and become scarier, like a juggernaut;)
Slightly better information than before, from the summary of the Inside Xbox:
Unveiling the Zedhunter Pack in State of Decay 2
Today, we got a first look at the next content pack for State of Decay 2 launching November 16th, the Zedhunter Pack. This new pack adds the powerful and silent crossbow as a new zombie-slaying weapon along with additional melee weapons, facilities, blood plague consumables, and gameplay updates like the ability to respect your skills all into the main game. As part of our continued commitment to supporting the four million players in the State of Decay 2 community, Zedhunter will be free for all players – owners of either Standard or Ultimate Edition along with Xbox Game Pass members. Looking forward, we also announced that we are working on a more challenging player experience coming in 2019. Stay tuned for additional details on this difficulty setting and more.
The Zedhunter Update launches today, free for all SoD2 players including Xbox Game Pass, and owners of the Standard and Ultimate editions. This update adds eight new crossbows, three new melee weapons, three new close combat weapons, three new blood plague consumables, quirk skills, achievements, a respecc option, and missions to the game. For a complete content list and more information, you can read our blog post here.
Patch note highlights:
Your character is now only impressed by a scavenging location when it actually has a lot of searchable containers.
Your character no longer reacts to every suburban house like it’s a prime outpost opportunity.
Allied enclaves ask for help (and risk leaving the map if you ignore them) about half as often as they did before.
Fallen NPCs now drop their close-combat weapons for you to recover. They can be equipped by other characters or salvaged for parts.
QoL things too:
It may not have been clear in the previous Patch Notes that we now store only the 50 most recently used legacy characters, instead of stacking them up endlessly. This was necessary to reduce save sizes and prevent data loss. We are currently working on further improvements to this process.
When you delete a community, any characters within that community who have completed at least one legacy are now saved.
Negative traits gained through conversation have had their negative impacts reduced, and in many cases, removed entirely. You can feel more confident bringing followers into the field.
The bad:
You now need to interact with the storage facility directly to withdraw a rucksack, rather than teleporting them magically onto your back from across the map.
“I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
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HalfmexI mock your value systemYou also appear foolish in the eyes of othersRegistered Userregular
The 6.0 update dropped a few days ago (patch notes here) and among a number of QoL improvements, zombie spawns have increased pretty significantly, growing larger in number over time. Six days into my current community, the hordes are around 12-15 per group and they often spawn close to one another. On top of that, the freak zombies spawn a lot more frequently - it's not uncommon to run into two juggernauts or a feral and two bloaters in the same general area. The net result of this is a pretty significant increase in difficulty for the game, particularly in the early stages where you're still building your community's gear and materials. This isn't the 'difficulty increase' that is still planned for 2019 but if lack of challenge was an issue for anyone here before, this update definitely makes the game tougher.
The 6.0 update dropped a few days ago (patch notes here) and among a number of QoL improvements, zombie spawns have increased pretty significantly, growing larger in number over time. Six days into my current community, the hordes are around 12-15 per group and they often spawn close to one another. On top of that, the freak zombies spawn a lot more frequently - it's not uncommon to run into two juggernauts or a feral and two bloaters in the same general area. The net result of this is a pretty significant increase in difficulty for the game, particularly in the early stages where you're still building your community's gear and materials. This isn't the 'difficulty increase' that is still planned for 2019 but if lack of challenge was an issue for anyone here before, this update definitely makes the game tougher.
So.. March 26, there will be an update that includes two more difficulty levels, and 270 points worth of achievements, hopefully not related to said difficulties. Dread and Nightmare.
Dread:
More hordes
armored zombie hordes
more blood plague (30 minute blood plague timer)
npcs with more HP and headshots
blood plague juggernauts
Nightmare:
even more hordes.
hordes of special zombies (screamers, ferals).
blood plague juggernauts.
npcs with more HP and headshots
even more blood plague (10 minute blood plague time).
... yay?
tastydonuts on
“I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
They mentioned the achievements are tied to Nightmare, or so reddit would have me believe.
Well, I mean I stopped playing entirely because I didn't want my communities to end... so eh. I mean, I'll just have to eat the completion percentage loss from the 270 points.
Trumbull returning is still a neat thing that may be coming though, so there's that.
maybe they'll make it so finishing a legacy doesn't end the community too at some point? IDK.
“I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
Has anyone else been playing through the new difficulties? I finished a Dread zone playthrough. The hordes are bigger, sometimes have nothing but armored zeds in them, or have a pair of freaks wandering with them. Supplies are a harder to come by (like half the gun stores were already looted). Definitely a bump up in difficulty, you end up sneaking around a lot more instead of just running around shooting everything.
Just started a Nightmare community, and it's already apparent that it's going to be rough going. My group spawned in worryingly close to a screamer, and the zombie density is even higher than Dread. The one thing I'm really worried about, though, is that people report the hostile enclave NPCs are bullet sponges and have aimbot accuracy, to the point of being bullshit.
Not content to be left out of the WW2 + Zombies craze, State of Decay 2's latest patch includes WW2 weapons:
Community Request: We’ve added a new set of classic weapons from the World War II era:
M1918 BAR
M1A1 Thompson
M3 Grease Gun
Surplus M1911
M1917 Revolver
M1903A4 Sniper Rifle
M1 Carbine
M1 Para Carbine
M97 Trench Gun
More importantly, this patch also added the ability to demote a leader without exiling or killing them, unload ammunition from weapons in your inventory, and is said to address NPCs running off to smash a zombie 50 feet away from them while in the middle of a trade or conversation with you. Things that were a long time coming. Now if only you can complete a legacy without dissolving a community
I just wanted to throw out there, I loved the first State of Decay but don't have an Xbox One for the sequel. I do have a PS4, and if any of you have a PS4 and enjoy State of Decay's exploration and slower pace but wish it had a better story and gorgeous-ass graphics... maybe check out Days Gone on PS4.
I had basically ignored the game's pre-release stuff, wasn't hyped for it at all, but all those 7/10 reviews got me curious and I decided to check it out specifically because one of the reviews I read of it brought State of Decay to mind and I wanted something in that vein. It ain't perfect, but it's got a ton of character and charisma, it's pretty damned close to being a pure triple-A and it's been keeping me off Overwatch - which is usually a pretty strong indicator of quality for me.
'Chance, you are the best kind of whore.' -Henroid
While I am awaiting for payday to get Days Gone I have had a quick dig back into State of Decay 2 and trying to get my 2nd community through their first map.
Been a while and set myself on fire near a plague heart and then got eaten by a feral.
Yep! It's a ~11GB download, free to play if you have Game Pass but $9.99 otherwise I believe. Also, two things to note in case it's not obvious
1. The new Trumbull Valley map is entirely self-contained, meaning you can't bring your existing community over to it (or start a new community there). It's a purely narrative-focused experience that exists outside the core game, similar to how the Daybreak expansion worked.
2. There are new traits and skills for each of the survivors in this new story, though those also do not exist in the core game. Ditto the new base plots and functions.
With that said, it still seems to be a fun mode so far and should definitely satisfy those who wished for a more story-focused version of this game akin to the original. Oh, and it's tough - much tougher than the default difficulty of SoD2. With everything being plague infected, including all of the freak zombies, it definitely shocked me and I've been playing since launch. Blood plague ferals are no joke.
This new PC game pass $1 trial is letting me download State of Decay 2. And I get Heartland, which I want to play, and not Daybreak, which I don't. Perfect.
Steam Badger A greasemonkey script for better gifting and peering
This new PC game pass $1 trial is letting me download State of Decay 2. And I get Heartland, which I want to play, and not Daybreak, which I don't. Perfect.
Daybreak was pretty terrible. I ground it to unlock items for the regular mode, until I found out about the mod tool and just gave myself a zillion prestige so I'd never have to play Daybreak again.
Just got around to playing Nightmare and I've restarted three times so far. Supplies are more scarce, but it basically just makes you scavenge everything instead of passing stuff by. You can still amass stuff fairly easily, the bad part is guns will get you swarmed HARD if you use them. Vehicles go from full health to wrecked in about 20 hits so you end up swerving all over the place trying to avoid running into the packs. It takes five samples to make a cure and the infected seem to drop less of them. You have to re-earn the legacy buffs on each difficulty now as well.
Enjoying the challenge, but when you turn and see three ferals coming at you...
In a way, I am glad that they added the difficulty achievements and that other mode that kind of made me drift away from the game before they put in their latest update that the dash informed me of:
You can even customize your characters wear a juggernaut's face. All to make you more attached to them when they die because two ferals and a jug spawned off camera your car ran out of gas or you simply finished your campaign or something.
but maaaan. I wish that was available at launch. it looks so sweet. there's bounties now too.
Also, if you log in between Oct 24 - 31st you get an outfit.
State of Decay 2: Juggernaut Editon is coming to Steam on March 13 for $29.99. Contains all the DLC, plus a new map. Current owners get the new map as well, and if you’ve bought any of the DLC or the Ultimate edition, you get some exclusive in-game items.
So, Undead Labs is still updating this game. If you haven’t played in a while, it might be worth jumping back in to check out the changes. Of note:
* Granular difficulty settings. You can now adjust the Combat(damage, number of zombies/freaks spawning), Map(resource and vehicle scarcity), and Community(food usage, morale, etc) difficulties independently.
* New Lethal difficulty mode, worse than nightmare. Enjoy drowning in hordes and being mobbed by a million ferals if you ever fire a gun!
* Sidearms. You can now carry a pistol-sized sidearm in addition to your main ranged weapon.
* Plague Territories. All plague hearts now have a zone of influence around them that prevent you from establishing outposts or bases until the heart is destroyed. Sometimes plague territories from multiple hearts will overlap, and you will have to destroy all of them in order to claim buildings in that area.
Edit: forgot a couple
* Upgradeable outposts Spend influence and materials to increase the output of outposts. You also get a skill benefit specific to each kind of outpost. Ammunition outposts let you train chemistry, food outposts let you train gardening, etc.
* Landmark outposts. Each map now has a unique outpost that grants some special bonuses. The only one I’ve seen so far is the Wind Farm in Meagher Valley. You can spend labor there to generate power for your base, among other things I don’t recall offhand.
So, Undead Labs is still updating this game. If you haven’t played in a while, it might be worth jumping back in to check out the changes. Of note:
* Granular difficulty settings. You can now adjust the Combat(damage, number of zombies/freaks spawning), Map(resource and vehicle scarcity), and Community(food usage, morale, etc) difficulties independently.
* New Lethal difficulty mode, worse than nightmare. Enjoy drowning in hordes and being mobbed by a million ferals if you ever fire a gun!
* Sidearms. You can now carry a pistol-sized sidearm in addition to your main ranged weapon.
* Plague Territories. All plague hearts now have a zone of influence around them that prevent you from establishing outposts or bases until the heart is destroyed. Sometimes plague territories from multiple hearts will overlap, and you will have to destroy all of them in order to claim buildings in that area.
Edit: forgot a couple
* Upgradeable outposts Spend influence and materials to increase the output of outposts. You also get a skill benefit specific to each kind of outpost. Ammunition outposts let you train chemistry, food outposts let you train gardening, etc.
* Landmark outposts. Each map now has a unique outpost that grants some special bonuses. The only one I’ve seen so far is the Wind Farm in Meagher Valley. You can spend labor there to generate power for your base, among other things I don’t recall offhand.
The continued support for this game is impressive.
If I wasn't currently drowning in unplayed games, I'd be tempted to start a new game and mop up some achievements.
I really hope part of the reason they keep adding stuff is to test things that will be in SoD 3 on day one.
Shit, I might play this again. You can move an existing community to the new area, and it’s sounds like it’s a big map with lots of cool bases. I think I still have a load of achievements to get, too. I might lower the difficulty and have some fun later today.
I looking forward to SoD 3 if they carry these improvements over. For example, ammo stacks have been increased, and can be increased further with perks. More inventory space is always good.
So...I didn't watch this video but it looks like one of the main reasons that I stopped playing the game - a desire to keep my community going instead of ending the game upon completing the legacy mission - is finally being addressed, if this youtube video thumbnail is accurate.
So, Update 33 just released, and it's got some pretty big changes to the mechanics for plague hearts, infestations, and sieges. Basically:
Plague hearts start out dormant
Damaging them, damaging plague hearts near them, screamers screaming, making lots of noise, etc. will slowly wake them up
Once awake, plague hearts will start sending hordes towards your base, infesting buildings along the way (a horde will stop and infest a building, the infestation will build up, and when it gets severe enough it starts spawning other hordes which will infest other buildings on the way to your base, etc).
Infestations close to your base will turn into siege infestations, and will continually build strength unless they're cleared
Once a siege infestation reaches a threshold they'll start sending hordes of zombies at your base, replacing the old siege mechanic
So you can't just let infestations sit anymore and take a morale hit, they have to be managed or you'll be under siege constantly. To help mitigate this, outposts can now be set up with traps, either mines(like in the original SoD), or with bait to lure infestations in so you can deal with them.
I love how much Undead Labs continues to support this game, not just with bugfixes, but completely reworking game mechanics to flesh out the experience more.
Posts
(I miss being able to use fonts on the forum.
Yeah I need to actually buy the game now that I've thoroughly rented it via GamePass on Xbox. PC will definitely be the way to go there I think, if for no other reason than the potential modding goodness.
I like to think my little communities go on to thrive thanks in no small part to my brutal hardline stance on never recruiting/keeping anyone with even the faintest hint of a negative trait. What's that, you're bringing us -3 Morale because you're scared to sleep alone? Well guess what sunshine, you'll have plenty of company sleeping out with the zeds, out!
It does make me wonder whether there's a limit to how many former community members can be saved on one profile, though, because each time I start a new game there are each and every one of the members from my prior communities still selectable. I'd think that would start to take a toll on memory/performance after a while, no?
There's QoL improvements and bug stuff. Highlights include:
Balance Stuff too
Best improvement:
Explosives now set off other nearby explosives, such as land mines. Have fun with that;)
edit: *CCS would improve very slowly or you had to use the training facility to bump it up at a normal pace.
(Source)
Penny Arcade Rockstar Social Club / This is why I despise cyclists
Oh thank god.
Awesome! That 100% refund thing bugged the heck out of me. Now outposts will be slightly less exploitable.
It will feature a bunch of new stuff like a new mode. It is a solo/co-op (4 max) horde/defense mode and you can get 2 NPCs if solo.
ALSO Finally figured out where the face of one of the guys comes from and why it looked weirdly familiar it's the Xbox guy.
NOTE (Spoiler):
Daybreak Stream:
https://mixer.com/XboxUK?vod=50798925
Patch 4.0 is up!
A major feature of this patch as far as QoL goes is how random resource loss/gain works:
Random surprise:
Full Notes
THERE ARE CROSSBOWS. (video/etc will come once it's available)
You can recover the arrows too!
There will an update in 2019 to add new "challenges" that will make it harder. Trumbull Valley (not country) may be returning.
(Also blood plague "superpowers")
Crossbows, WOO!
(Source)
Crossbows sound good.
Patch note highlights:
QoL things too:
The bad:
(Source)
Ooh, maybe I'll give this another whirl soon.
Dread:
More hordes
armored zombie hordes
more blood plague (30 minute blood plague timer)
npcs with more HP and headshots
blood plague juggernauts
Nightmare:
even more hordes.
hordes of special zombies (screamers, ferals).
blood plague juggernauts.
npcs with more HP and headshots
even more blood plague (10 minute blood plague time).
... yay?
Well, I mean I stopped playing entirely because I didn't want my communities to end... so eh. I mean, I'll just have to eat the completion percentage loss from the 270 points.
Trumbull returning is still a neat thing that may be coming though, so there's that.
maybe they'll make it so finishing a legacy doesn't end the community too at some point? IDK.
Just started a Nightmare community, and it's already apparent that it's going to be rough going. My group spawned in worryingly close to a screamer, and the zombie density is even higher than Dread. The one thing I'm really worried about, though, is that people report the hostile enclave NPCs are bullet sponges and have aimbot accuracy, to the point of being bullshit.
More importantly, this patch also added the ability to demote a leader without exiling or killing them, unload ammunition from weapons in your inventory, and is said to address NPCs running off to smash a zombie 50 feet away from them while in the middle of a trade or conversation with you. Things that were a long time coming. Now if only you can complete a legacy without dissolving a community
Source
I just wanted to throw out there, I loved the first State of Decay but don't have an Xbox One for the sequel. I do have a PS4, and if any of you have a PS4 and enjoy State of Decay's exploration and slower pace but wish it had a better story and gorgeous-ass graphics... maybe check out Days Gone on PS4.
I had basically ignored the game's pre-release stuff, wasn't hyped for it at all, but all those 7/10 reviews got me curious and I decided to check it out specifically because one of the reviews I read of it brought State of Decay to mind and I wanted something in that vein. It ain't perfect, but it's got a ton of character and charisma, it's pretty damned close to being a pure triple-A and it's been keeping me off Overwatch - which is usually a pretty strong indicator of quality for me.
Been a while and set myself on fire near a plague heart and then got eaten by a feral.
Game is still fun.
With this expansion, the game returns to Trumbull Valley (SoD 1 vanilla map), where it all began.
Features are as follows:
Announcement
Yep! It's a ~11GB download, free to play if you have Game Pass but $9.99 otherwise I believe. Also, two things to note in case it's not obvious
1. The new Trumbull Valley map is entirely self-contained, meaning you can't bring your existing community over to it (or start a new community there). It's a purely narrative-focused experience that exists outside the core game, similar to how the Daybreak expansion worked.
2. There are new traits and skills for each of the survivors in this new story, though those also do not exist in the core game. Ditto the new base plots and functions.
With that said, it still seems to be a fun mode so far and should definitely satisfy those who wished for a more story-focused version of this game akin to the original. Oh, and it's tough - much tougher than the default difficulty of SoD2. With everything being plague infected, including all of the freak zombies, it definitely shocked me and I've been playing since launch. Blood plague ferals are no joke.
Steam Badger A greasemonkey script for better gifting and peering
Daybreak was pretty terrible. I ground it to unlock items for the regular mode, until I found out about the mod tool and just gave myself a zillion prestige so I'd never have to play Daybreak again.
On top of that, they have that 100 consecutive days on worst difficulty achievement that's like... nah. so, I haven't bothered.
Daybreak wasn't my jam anyway, but Heartland seems like it'll be good stuff, so once I finish one of the games I'm playing through, gonna pick it up.
Enjoying the challenge, but when you turn and see three ferals coming at you...
(Detail video here)
You can even customize your characters wear a juggernaut's face. All to make you more attached to them when they die because two ferals and a jug spawned off camera your car ran out of gas or you simply finished your campaign or something.
but maaaan. I wish that was available at launch. it looks so sweet. there's bounties now too.
Also, if you log in between Oct 24 - 31st you get an outfit.
(Full Patch Notes)
So, Undead Labs is still updating this game. If you haven’t played in a while, it might be worth jumping back in to check out the changes. Of note:
* Granular difficulty settings. You can now adjust the Combat(damage, number of zombies/freaks spawning), Map(resource and vehicle scarcity), and Community(food usage, morale, etc) difficulties independently.
* New Lethal difficulty mode, worse than nightmare. Enjoy drowning in hordes and being mobbed by a million ferals if you ever fire a gun!
* Sidearms. You can now carry a pistol-sized sidearm in addition to your main ranged weapon.
* Plague Territories. All plague hearts now have a zone of influence around them that prevent you from establishing outposts or bases until the heart is destroyed. Sometimes plague territories from multiple hearts will overlap, and you will have to destroy all of them in order to claim buildings in that area.
Edit: forgot a couple
* Upgradeable outposts Spend influence and materials to increase the output of outposts. You also get a skill benefit specific to each kind of outpost. Ammunition outposts let you train chemistry, food outposts let you train gardening, etc.
* Landmark outposts. Each map now has a unique outpost that grants some special bonuses. The only one I’ve seen so far is the Wind Farm in Meagher Valley. You can spend labor there to generate power for your base, among other things I don’t recall offhand.
The continued support for this game is impressive.
If I wasn't currently drowning in unplayed games, I'd be tempted to start a new game and mop up some achievements.
I really hope part of the reason they keep adding stuff is to test things that will be in SoD 3 on day one.
Trumbull Valley map with new story, weapons, bases. Drops September 1.
Here’s the patch list.
https://support.stateofdecay.com/hc/en-us/articles/4407784935053-Update-26-Homecoming
Shit, I might play this again. You can move an existing community to the new area, and it’s sounds like it’s a big map with lots of cool bases. I think I still have a load of achievements to get, too. I might lower the difficulty and have some fun later today.
I looking forward to SoD 3 if they carry these improvements over. For example, ammo stacks have been increased, and can be increased further with perks. More inventory space is always good.
If only they didn't sandbag it with all those annoying difficulty related achievements too... idk. but yay?
So, Update 33 just released, and it's got some pretty big changes to the mechanics for plague hearts, infestations, and sieges. Basically:
So you can't just let infestations sit anymore and take a morale hit, they have to be managed or you'll be under siege constantly. To help mitigate this, outposts can now be set up with traps, either mines(like in the original SoD), or with bait to lure infestations in so you can deal with them.
I love how much Undead Labs continues to support this game, not just with bugfixes, but completely reworking game mechanics to flesh out the experience more.