I think it’s usually Santa who hands those out?
Have I mentioned just how much you’d hate the final mission of the DLC? 
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Not everybody is wholly honest! Especially in this day and age. No one knows how they will react to Action and to extreme stress, and to being as close to violent death as they will ever be, until they get there. In one direction or another it is completely unexpected. No one chooses action over going down the pub, but there is an awareness that it must be done, and if it is to be done, it must be done whole-heartedly, with every fibre of your being, every sense alive, every cell in your body in tune. You forget to be fightened and you are totally in the moment.
It is the same sentiment that makes people base-jump. It is afterwards you sweat.
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I don’t like napalm. Read my reply below and you’ll see what I mean…
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That, is entirely your opinion.
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Ok, @Flick, it’s official, you’re pretty smart. How come you know all this stuff? Me and my readers would like to know 
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You sound like you have some first-hand experience yourself.
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NOTE: the post is not meant as insult.
I wrote a few things hoping you would see the humour of it, and not see it as any form of disrespect or assault to anyone.
Thank you.
Unfun FACT: even balance is sadly NOT based on science, but taste, for games.
This is why I revert to reality.
Al I see I bring back into reality, or “reality”.
The “reality” is semi-reality for stuff that is not (yet) within our reality.
For machines this means: No, they do not see mere 20 meters.
No, they do not need 10 seconds to figure out: “Hmmm, I think I should shoot back… hmmm??? What you, XR005833956? Oh… you’re dead? Well well…”
No, they do not think: Oh, it’s 50m away, that is outside my designed aggro-range, leave it.
No, they do not run of tail between their legs.
Yet, it seems balance by the Devs and some players in GZ?
Which then brings me to: [quote=“Xogroroth, post:73, topic:21045”]
I so agree, but what is balance.
It is to sir Ennui different then to Miss Flick, and both see that different from you, and all of you see it different than me.
[/quote]Who decides the balance, what is it based on, why did balance shift from fairly real to whack-a-mole?
More, who decided it was interesting to shift from survival to a shoot-and-loot?
And even “morer”: why?
Because a few decided it was a bit too much work?
Because, “I no likee sneakkey sneakkey, my wanna pwnzr”?
“Oh me too, pwnzr an loottie loottie mucho hoardey”?
IF it was for such people (and mind, all respect to them!!!), then why not create an optional soft-mode?
That would have fixed FAR more than shoving the ‘adaptations’ through everyones throat.
And this is common sense, I reckon.
But…
I cannot believe it was for those requesting it.
I believe there was a different reason, whichever it was…
I just like to know which, so I can understand.
To me, not understanding, is… pure hell…
I just NEED to understand…
(STILL talking BALANCE here).
Now, we can’t, I think, go back and restart from where these balance shifts started, and do it ‘the proper way’.
It would undo a lot of good work as well.
Hence I came with the idea to make a Normal Game Mode, (with the original settings), aGame + with much harder settings and a Game++ (for truly HARDCORE gaming, where crossing a street would be a 75%/80% chance of extreme horrible death, a mode which I so long for, where each stupidity is payed for with blood of a thousand virgins (manner of speaking)).
Why such an insane mode???
AAAH: PURIST all the way: yes, TOO much reality CAN be good (for me that is).
Remove Adren, increase HP packs, but let the HoT take longer, machines are TRUE military beasts: nigh instand reaction, 500m LoS detection, 75m audio detection, 500M aggro-range, serious death penalty, hunger and thirst in a LOGICAL sense (one just does not die from hunger faster than he would of thirst, FACT!), weight and stamina logic, you name it…
No, one should not keel over if he did not drink for a day, not in two days (but that would give blurry vision (headache simulation of dehydratation) which will only go slowly away after you drink enough, death will be at the end of 72H (three days)), Hunger should be possible for 2 weeks easily, but consequences (based on reality) would be part of it, there will be bad drinks, bad food, … also with their consequences, …
Yes, insanity.
Fun thing, some actually LOOK for a game like this.
Some just are totally fed up by kill’n’loot games of which there are 100 in a dozen.
Some are fed up by one-shotting enemies.
Or enemies with the IQ of a goldfish.
Let’s shove THAT through their throat.
No lol, of those that LOOK for it, it would be of course logical.
Another thing which could be implemented is… SLIDERS!!!
No preset mode, no “Choose and be fed” gaming, but highly adaptable slider settings.
Not enough machines?
Slide up.
Not enough AI?
Slide up.
TOO thirsty?
Slide down.
…
Extreme modularity right there.
YES, I know…
This would be a tough job to do.
But I can nigh guarantee that this would REALLY attract a ton of people.
Simply because games usually just are not modular to such degree.
I mean: make a game TOTALLY to YOUR taste?
I bet ya, that will draw folks, even if for curiosity alone.
And we all know the cat, right?
If that was killed by curiousity, then surely, folks will get the game, if only it was to check it out.
Now… I do now… this idea is just crazy!
It simply CANNOT be done.
Or… can it?
One other thing, @Avalanche: Please be somewhat smarter, and protect your game.
I think that like 70% of all users have a haxxorred version.
That is SO frikken sad…
Please try to make the game… “unhaxxorrable”…
You’re most welcome here, no need for payment or such, it’s, as always, a freebie. 
EDIT: ADDENDUM:
NONE here is meant to be used against any person or institution.
The above ideas are not meant to be forced upon anyone, they are IDEAS, nothing more and nothing less.
IF you ever should decide to use one, feel free.
My ideas are totally yours, whomever it is that might like and/or use them. 
No, his Ebil Twin Brotha: Satan Claws. 
[quote=“Bootie, post:82, topic:21045”]
Not everybody is wholly honest! Especially in this day and age. No one knows how they will react to Action and to extreme stress…
[/quote]True.
And fun fact, even if you are in the same situation 10 times, you will probably react 8 times differently.
So, not even THAT is set in stone…
True?
Even getting out of bed on the wrong side can turn an event you had 5 times before ENTIRELY different from YOU out…
True.
It is that, and only that.
Your answer is in the question, sir.
She is… smart.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this since I read this…
Maybe they could add a few players, “purists” (certainly not me, lol, I am a wacko), to see what is needed to “get back on track” (story/original game style).
Even if it was to get ideas, or a new, fresh angle…
Thoughts?
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Oh dear, @Xogroroth, that was a long post, so I’ll read it in chunks
In the normal distribution what is considered the average gamer covers 68% of the population. Make that segment happy and your development ressources are well managed. Even though I like and support the configuration model we’ve discussed a bit, it probably won’t give an optimal return on investment. So that brings us back to the burger discussion. Will you cater for the masses or the fineschmeckers?
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Yes, but I think a concept like that is very difficult to market (@Bootie, please comment). At counter 1 to 6 we serve you cheeseburgers wrapped in paper and a coke. At counter 7 and 8 you’ll get a sirloin steak with a butter baked brioche on a plate with your preferred garnish, served with knife and fork and a glas of wine. All at the same price, by the way. How would you market that to the audience? We serve all because we are the Cheesecake Factory. Except that we are not.
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@IanForce
Well… I think GZ is not quite so a diner.
I do get you…
And yes, in a diner that would be very hard.
In a game, quite possibly too, not sure…
I’m not a coder, after all.
Still, if I were to make a game, I’d try to keep it as modular as possible.
But… that’s me.
Now, the slider idea was nothing but idea, unlike the game, game + and game++ idea.
These I think are quite doable.
Then again, I need to repeat: I am no coder…
What do I know.
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I think this is not about coding. They definitely have sort of sliders internally for game balancing. It is more about marketing. Do you want to publish and market a complete sand box? Many players want to play ‘the’ game and want to be happy with ‘the’ game.
I personally know that from modding. There were a couple of games I modded the sh*t out of, Stalker e.g. And after I finally decided I was done, I returned to the vanilla game, with minor bug fix mods, because I had lost the interest in having my arbitrary version and wanted to play the actual game again. The possibility of freely adjusting about anything in the game and being able to just have anything you want (arbitrary vehicles, e.g.) basically devaluated it for me.
This is a thing (for me) in other life areas as well. MP3 file sharing was big for a while where you could basically “have” all the music you wanted. Of course, audio quality (and song version) varied heavily. At some point I noticed that I had lost my interest in (this) music to a large extent. I started buying CDs again allowing me to actually “own” “that” album of a certain band.
Aside of these consideration, opening up a wide variety of choices might open the box of pandora for the studio. They would be presented with a never ending line of choices coming from community requests: Do want to enable this “slider” as well? Is this then still the game we stand for? That might be an impossible position at some point.
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I suspect it’s more an IDIC thing.
(“Infinite bugs in infinite combinations.”)
So less of, “Is this then still the game we stand for?” and more, “Can we realistically provide quality control and support for such a wide range of configurations?”
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That is definitely a factor. Not sure you were serious with the Pizza Girl, though.
GZ probably is a little more complex? And it also makes a difference whether such adjustments were present from the start.
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Similar sliders for HP multiplier (player), HP multiplier (enemies), and so on should be simple enough.¹ Heck, if we had more missions like the last one of the DLC, even the “time pressure” one would be of use. 
Perhaps most important of all:
Scaling factor per additional team member
(or a variant thereof)
so we can finally move beyond “the game’s too easy in co-op!”/“the game’s too hard in solo!”
Or for something more specific to this game:
tick drop rate multiplier
percentage of APO mobs vs total mobs
[x] confine APO mobs to DLC area
¹ I was tempted to write this as “damage scaling”, but I don’t want to have to worry about side effects such as no longer doing enough damage to set off gas bottles or cars.
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Someone else suggested a single game difficulty slider. I would prefer that and leave the balancing to the devs. But your ideas are valid, we talked about that before.
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I would prefer that for the sole reason that for a long time, “Session private?” did nothing, “Language?” did not stick, and, well, “Display mode” still isn’t restored reliably.
(And of course, the configured movement keys still don’t apply to bikes.)
If five sliders were to be added, we’d probably all be well sick of the game long before they did anything of worth.
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Can you elaborate on those?
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