I’m happy you like the perks and traits for fellow survivors. There should be negatives along with their positives.
Let’s say Rosie, she may not be a confirmed follower yet but she seems the perfect example: she’s experienced in a variety of firearms and scouting and would make an excellent scavenger/defender although it appears she buckles when faced with overwhelming odds (like the horde of zombies in the auditorium), she will become unpredictable possibly a danger to herself and others, and being a bandit, that could be a bad influence on morale on other survivors especially Jill and Jaime. So every pro comes with its own con.
Also I felt in ZE good and bad were still in visibility, like making ‘bad’ choices estranged almost every relationship you had with your fellow survivors. If the lines are blurred it would be more interesting. Jill made a very interesting quote something along the lines of ‘if he’s this nice to strangers I’m worried if he can handle the hardships of survival’. So there shouldn’t be a right or wrong way that affects your humanity, only your survival. Good people will do bad things for their own or their group’s survival, Lyle is a perfect example, he’s a nice guy who had to go along with a con for his survival, that didn’t make him no less human or kind.
Simply put, what we would call uncivilised and immoral choices in the real world shouldn’t turn the character into a monster like it did in ZE. Of course our character will feel bad, but it has to be done to stay alive. Some of your fellow survivors will agree and disagree, instead of all of them looking down on you… Unless you’re Devlin, he never gave a hoot what you did.
Edit: though some things SHOULD affect your character, let’s say you killed an unarmed survivor for their gear or crippling somebody and leaving them for a hoard, instead of hurting your humanity it hurts your mental health.
For the college student they can declare a major and either A. Be able to master whatever skills are associated with the major (maybe only 1 or 2 master skills instead of 3 to avoid making a college student OP) or B. Have a further discount on those specified skills, but be unable to master them.
Also like what @mistylavenda 1 sounds good, but depends on the discount size really. A teenager and college student could be a Jack-of-All trades (college student a bit more oritented towards specific things depending on the major they select).
Homemaker, jack of all trades, can master up to three skills (same as the other adults) but gets no discounts on any skill at all (specialization at a cost. For example my case of playing the homemaker as ex-army with ptsd, the fact that skills cost more could be due to his psych problems and the fact that he’s “rusty”).
College kid, gets discounts (up to level 5, or so) can master the skill most associated with his master and one other, for a total of two.
Teenager, also gets discounts, but can only master a single skill, due to having no masters. Maybe gets an additional hidden recovery bonus to health (both mental and physical).
Playing a game with combat simplified to a couple of keys and buttons wouldn’t really surpass say a soldier who has been on the battlefield in terms of survival rating though.
Like what @mistylavenda said, video games don’t attribute to survival skills. However youth generally does mean a better learning capacity since teenagers and college students are generally not too focused on any specific traits.
@idonotlikeusernames seems to be the most fair to me so far, but I don’t know about the ex-military being a homemaker. That’d diversify the character customization more (making characters being one thing, but having a past profession), but I fear that’d be a lot of extra coding.
If @JimD did do something like that then it could be a hybrid option where you choose 2-3 professions that your character is “experienced” in making them perhaps lvl 1 or lvl 2 in majority of skills and a combination of any 2-3 skills he or she can master, but like I said that sounds like a lot of extra coding.
Such an amazing game Though considering the other ones i guess i shouldnt be surprised. One thing i thought was funny was when even though jillian and lyle (i think is how you spell it) both know im military and that i have a gun jillian still insists they that take my gear and leave, kinda wondering how she thought she was getting out. One more thing i found was when i went scavenging in the other houses (i believe it was the one with the dead married couple) i had a knife and a pistol and when i saw a zombie and chose to attack it said i drew my knife and shot it
I mean, I always got the impression that he’s a professional con artist conning people for his survival because that’s what he’s good at. Like Jillian. That isn’t to say they deserve to die or anything, (I don’t even want Rosie to die) but they’re hardly “nice” or “kind”.
I definitely think it’d be cool if your actions could have an affect on the characters’ personalities. Like for example having the possibility to influence Rosie to try to turn over a new leaf or something.
I don’t think Jillian’s quote is nearly as interesting as you do. It speaks to her character as an exploitative cynic who’s used to living in a society where she could “take care of herself” by exploiting others, (because the repercussions for her actions were constantly cushioned by the presence of the government) and doesn’t yet understand the reality of her new situation. If she stole from someone before it wasn’t a matter of life and death. They weren’t going to die, and they had an external motivation not to take revenge on her. Now if she robs someone they very likely might die, and if not they may very likely hunt her down and do horrible things to her in revenge because there’s nothing to stop them but themselves. She doesn’t yet realize how much higher the stakes are, and that being “on her own” now is for real.
What turns people into monsters is when they truly start believing this excuse.
I never saw it in this perspective. Of course Lyle is a con artist the same as Jill, but he seems have decency and good nature to reveal his plans to the MC before asking to join, even if it was for his own agenda. Whilst Jill appears more selfish on her surface. ‘kind’ was the wrong word, that’s a given now.
Humanity perspective yes, humanity still is a thing to others, but wouldn’t it more affect their mental health than anything? If I killed somebody for their stuff to keep me and my group fed in the apocalypse it would be haunting, but maybe we could put this in the player’s control? It’s up to them whether they feel bad about their actions which would damage mental health or suppress this guilt and tell themselves not to let their emotions take hold then it would damage their humanity? It would that complicate things?
My impression is that Jillian is just more naive and stupid while Lyle is more intelligent and cunning, perhaps to the point of manipulating Jillian herself considering that if you save them he departs without her to find his daughter. Maybe he really believes she will be safer with the MC, but maybe he thinks he is better off without her since she can be a liability, I mean, she did yell at him all the way to the car drawing attention of the zombies.
The way I did it was with a high ranged weapons skill and shot Rosie, she survives the shot and is stunned, causing the others to flee but not until they fatally wound Lyle
yeah that’s what I said a while ago played as a conman and saved them both…guessing intimidation would work…but not tried it…but is there a way to save them both using violence? tried attacking multiple people(driver,dillan and rosie)with maxed out stealth and long range stats etc with multiple weapons but can only save one. but anyhoo as I also said I really like Lyle…and think about it the game states they’ve been conmen before the outbreak(probs long before) but maybe the outbreak changed them. I think Lyle has mixed feelings as if he really cared surely he’d prefer her company? But due to her emotional outbursts knows she’s a corpse without the MC. I mean they do tell you their plans and they nick your stuff the morning after if you’re not nice to them…so are clearly capable of it, but only do that if you’re not nice but are still there if you are nice.
@Bruno_Frank_Hill I don’t think so, it’s like they say, violence breeds violence. So if you act in an aggressive manner they will retaliate the same way and Lyle or Jill or both gets caught up in the crossfire. It’s different from ZE because your decisions have major influence on the next scene this time round.
Somebody mentioned to me before that Lyle isn’t exactly nice since he does con people out of their gear but rather good natured and thinks wisely when it comes to survival, he mentions in the argument with Jill that the MC is their best chance for survival because he/she treated them with respect (that is if you chose to) and got basic survival needs figured out on day one.
Jim I enjoyed Wise Use of Time, I feel like you could take that game and make a series. Because from the way it ended that’s not the end of the adventure, people are going to want to know the rest of what happens to our chareter. And how does he or she die.
