I also play on Guerilla and haven’t noticed that there would be more machines when compared to Skirmish. Then again, it all depends if you’re in one of the hotspots or not.
Hardest thing on Guerilla, for me, is staying alive since several machines can one-shot you and also drain your HP even before you have time to react. Due to that, i’ve also gained quite a few deaths lately and i’ve almost run out of first aid kits. Other than that, i like Guerilla. Also, i now need to use far more cover than before, which i actually like (e.g fortress defense style - me in the house, machine armada outside).
As far as death penalty goes, it could be gradual and different depending on difficulty level. E.g:
Adventurer - same as right now, no penalty and respawn with 100 HP.
Skirmish - can’t respawn in the closest safehouse or fast travel there and respawn with 50 HP.
Guerilla - can’t respawn in the same region or fast travel to that region and respawn with 20 HP.
Note:
respawn = spawn in safehouse
revive = spawn using adrenaline shot or when someone else revives you
Further explanation
On Adventurer, everything remains same since that difficulty level is more about the journey and sight seeing than combat. Any death penalty would only lessen the experience.
On Skirmish, the inability to spawn in the closest safehouse would remedy OP’s issue since it removes the safehouse exploit of respawning back with 100 HP and continuing the battle just outside of it.
For added flavor, the closet safehouse icon also disappears from the map and if you want to Fast Travel there, you need to hike back to it and unlock it for you again.
Moreover, when you respawn in safehouse, you won’t respawn with 100 HP but instead with 50HP.
To counteract the safehouse icon disappearance handicap, you have to revive yourself with an adrenaline shot on the spot or let your buddy revive you.
Also, the starter (Yttervik) safehouse can’t be removed, so you always have one safehouse where to spawn in.
On Guerilla, when you die and want to respawn inside safehouse, you can not pick any safehouse in your current region where to respawn.
All safehouses of the region where you died are removed and to unlock them all, you need to hike to each and every one again.
Also, when respawning in safehouse, you respawn with 20 HP only.
Using a-shot or letting your buddy to revive you doesn’t remove your safehouses from map.
And again, the starter (Yttervik) safehouse can’t be removed from map, so you always have one safehouse where to spawn in.
Scenario examples:
Battle in Airfield (Farmlands), die there, chose not to use a-shot:
Adventurer - respawn in any safehouse, including Airfield safehouse with 100 HP.
Skirmish - Airfield safehouse is removed from the map (since it the closest unlocked one), respawn in any other unlocked safehouse with 50 HP.
Guerilla - all Farmlands safehouses are removed from the map (since you are in Farmlands), respawn in any other region with 20 HP.
Battle near Vesslan command bunker (Archipelago), die there, chose not to use a-shot:
Adventurer - respawn in any safehouse, including Salthamn safehouse (or Vesslan if unlocked) with 100 HP.
Skirmish - Salthamn or Vesslan safehouse is removed from the map (whichever is the closest unlocked one), respawn in any other unlocked safehouse with 50 HP.
Guerilla - all Archipelago safehouses are removed from the map (since you are in Archipelago), except Yttervik safehouse, respawn in any other region or in Yttervik with 20 HP.
This penalty system gives a lot of value for using a-shots and first aid kits, especially on higher difficulties.
I would add penalty XP buffer, like you would got negative XP. But instead of that it would just halt your progress for the duration you gain the the penalty XP. You dont loose skill points or any of your current XP. This penalty buffer is just extra what you have to deal with.
Example, you die. You get 1000 XP penalty buffer. You do mission and kill machines until this 1000 XP reach 0 XP. After that you would again progress forward.
(This system is used in 7 Days To Die for same reasons as in this game, death didn’t have any penalty, and players even committed suicides when they got sick or infected by zombies.)
The reason why it works well in 7D2D is because in there, the level cap limit is very high and it takes a long time to achieve lvl 200 (i guess it was the max, not sure since i’m only lvl 56 in there). And when you die, you’ll loose 10% of the XP you’ve collected so far since leveling up (A18.2).
In GZ, level cap comes at lvl 31 which isn’t that time consuming to achieve (especially when comparing to 7D2D). And the XP loss only hurts players who aren’t max lvl.
Once player reaches max lvl and given the fact that you can not loose obtained level and skill points, the system completely stops. This leaves the same situation as now, but only with a difference where max lvl players can abuse the 100 HP respawn and everyone else can’t without loosing something.
My idea above doesn’t tie down to the char levels, instead it changes based on game difficulty, regardless the char level.
I’ve always thought the adrenaline shot should “prevent” you from dying, thus allowing a player to create a personal no-death challenge, maybe get awarded for staying alive over time. I strive for this goal every restart but unfortunately the robots continue to morph into places they shouldn’t and creep behind me. Wish it worked this way. oh well…
Since we now have the June Update going for some time now and difficulty changed quite a bit in favour of the players, I am going to warm this topic up since I find it rather interesting to hear thoughts and ideas about it.
From my point of view an XP penalty could be a tickbox, as in choice, for the Skirmish and Guerilla difficulty, as Aesyle suggested. Since this is a singleplayer game as well as a multiplayer game, the host of a multiplayer game could use that tickbox as well. However, making it mandatory to loose xp in a game as unbalanced and buggy as this - Don’t get me wrong! I love the game, but it seriously has some issues when it comes to when and why I die - is not a good idea in my opinion. Making it a choice though, would be grand and give players more challenge or more incentive to keep it “immersed” and not go rambo in every MP game.
Furthermore, if a singeplayer game has exploits - why not avoid them? There is no need to use them! For multiplayer I absolutely understand the issue though.
What else could we want as choice based tickboxes, since we are talking about player agency in terms of difficulty?
I keep thinking of games like XCOM or rogue-like games where permadeath and ironman (only 1 savegame) are often choices on the players side to add extra challenge and make choices more meaningful. Enabling 1-Life runs, limit safe house use per session/hour/player count or other things could be cool for Generation Zero and add replayability even for those who did all the things already ^.^
Environment and the game is not that bug free. 1/3 of my deaths are environment related. Cars explode right outside buildings killing me, gas canisters side of house, etc.
Even current sprint bug can cause your death because you cannot avoid incoming rocket salvo, mortar etc.
Sure you could avoid all of these planning meticulously carefully, but same time killing fun and enjoyment of the game itself.
That but the loss of safehouse. There’s no reason to forget where is the safehouse. Maybe you just can’t fast travel to it because of the combat in the region or in a 500m radius of the combat if it happen in the border. And no xp if the combat end while you are out of it. Oh, the rage!
And maybe the adoption of armor? A balistic armor, breakable, which degrades when hit and needs maintenance to function properly, just like Doom or The Divison. Did Sweden have something like this in the 80s?
If you play at max difficulty you haven’t so much ammo for a dead match I think… Penalty only at easiest difficulty and only as an option. There are too many bugs snd problems in this game and we don’t need more penalty… I didn’t play the game from my last game two weeks ago because the problems…
It’s not that your char “forgets” the safehouses, it’s about machines overtaking them from you, so, they aren’t “safe” anymore and you have to hike to them again, to unlock them and make them “safe” again.
Also, loosing safehouses is optional. If you use adrenaline shot to revive yourself, once you’ve been Downed, you will not loose the safehouse(s).
That’s off-topic question and i’m not going to answer it in here. If you want to discuss it, here’s the topic: Bullet proof vest
There are many ways how to make the lost safehouses inaccessible for the player. Sure, you can put e.g red icon over it, indicating it’s capture and rather than just hiking back to it and vaulting inside of it, just to “unlock” it again, you need to destroy the machines guarding it beforehand.
Yes, I know the feeling … I can’t play half an hour without an crash. And losing ammo or experience because the game crashed would be frustrating. But the idea here is to discuss improvements that could make the game more interesting. Maybe one day it will run smoothly? One can only hope.
Doesn’t have to be massive amounts of machines guarding the safehouse. For example, region specific guards based by class and type would do too.
E.g:
Archipelago & Farmlands - prototype class of guards
Forest & South Coast - military class of guards
Mountains, Marshlands & North Coast - FNIX class of guards
Himfjäll - apocalypse class of guards
And to spice it up, different safehouses would have different guards. The less strategic (convenient) the placement of a safehouse, the weaker type of guards.
E.g:
Random tent/barn/house - 5x runners
Lighthouses - 3x hunters
Churches - 1x harv
Command bunkers - 1x tank
Remember, we are talking about the expansion of my idea that deals with different stages of death penalty on different in-game difficulty levels. It would be only fair to have harder game on higher difficulty.
this evening luckily all run smoothly and I had a good time.