User:Jksgoten/Survival Experiment
This is jksgoten's experimental survival project page.
Note: I always encourage constructive criticism. Please, if you have any comments or concerns, email me @ [email protected]. And make your subject 'L4D DON'T DELETE ME' or something easily noticeable. I tend to scan very quickly through junk email titles, and yours may get deleted. Or feel free to leave a comment in the discussion portion of this page.
**Project Goals**
I really want to focus on creating a realistic experience and encouraging players not just to win, but to get into the actual roleplaying of being a survivor in a zombie apocalypse. I realize the audience for this type of map may be small. But really, this map is for me and my friends, and to see if I can make the l4d engine do the unique things I want it to. I also realize that there are arguments on what makes l4d realistic, but these are my thoughts on what is realistic, at least in the map I am trying to create. Also, this map is intended to be played with human players in realism mode. I think it would be extremely difficult to play this map with bots.
Realism
-Heavy focus on using melee weapons
-VERY few guns
-Found guns have limited ammo(usually one clip)
-Exploring map to find items(weapons, ammo, healthkits, food, barricade materials)
-Realistic placing of items
-Food must be collected(similar to gascans in scavenge mode)
-Barricade must be repaired
Nonlinearity
-Dynamic map
New Features
-Barricade creation system
-Food collection system
-Day/Night System
-Injured Players have a chance of turning into Infected
-Nonsurvivor NPCs
-Dynamic map
Changes to Infected
-Common start slow and speed up as map progresses
-Common killed only by headshots
-Less special infected
-Witch startled MUCH faster
-Epic Tank
Gameplay
-Scarcity of time and multiple goals encourage splitting up
-Scarcity of weapons encourages teams to stick close together
-Exploration highly rewarded
-Meant to be extremely difficult
-Losing is fun!
**Realism**
Melee Weapons
NEEDED: Weapons that destroy themselves after a certain amount of uses
Players are stripped of their pistols and equipped with melee weapons at the beginning of the map.
Ideally, I want to make tables and chairs breakable and you would pick up pieces of wood for melee weapons. And these would break after a certain amount of hits. Finding stronger, longer lasting melee weapons would be one goal for the survivors, but can always create more by destroying props. However I'm unsure if it's possible to make melee weapons that break after a certain amount of use.
It may be possible to give melee weapons a clip_size so that they break after a certain number of hits. A couple problems: 1. This may cause weapons to break by swinging and hitting nothing but air since the game can't doesn't distinguish between a hit or a miss when it comes to clip_sizes. 2. May not have a way to force the player to drop the weapon after it breaks. May be able to create an animation that shows the player it is broken.
Weapons
NEEDED: Weapons that start with only one clip and Ammo piles with limited supply
Weapons are found very rarely. Ideally, all players will have primary weapons only by maybe level 4.
Found weapons will only have one clip in them. Meant to be used out of desperation, not all the time.
There is a script for L4D1 that changes the amount of ammo in each clip. I believe somewhere there is something I can change to make guns carry less total ammo through use of either a script or plugin.
Total ammo carried can be limited by changing the primary ammo type to that of a shotgun. This has been tested and it works, however I do not know if it has any other adverse effects.
Placement
Cabinets, dressers, fridges open to contain items. Houses must be extensively searched.
**Nonlinearity**
Dynamic Map
What is meant by "Dynamic" map is a map that will:
1. Be different each play through. For example, sometimes a tanker has exploded and blocks a street, or an entire building will be located somewhere else(This will be a noteable change as supplies will be found in certain places like hospitals and stores).
2. Changes during gameplay. For example, a tanker crashes into a building and blocks a previously accessible pathway. Buildings fall apart, catwalks fall, etc...
**New Features**
Barricades
NEEDED: How to create collectible items(like the glyphs in Silent Fear)
NEEDED: Reason why tank has to break barricade and can't go around
NEEDED: How to make gas cans NOT explode
Intro shows survivors running away from tanks and building a barricade to keep them out(May have to use drawings to show this). This barricade will take random damage in random intervals and will have visual signs of how much health is left. If the barricade breaks, tanks start spawning periodically.
On breaking tables, doors, other wooden objects, planks spawn that the player can collect. I think I may use the gas can model for this. Possibly nails must also be collected. They will not be carried like the planks though, a counter just keeps track of how many sets of nails you have.
I may be able to make gas cans not explode by editing the weapon_.txt
Food
NEEDED: How to change cola into a box of spam
Cola bottles will be replaced with boxes of spam and pill bottles will be replaced with food. A countdown timer keeps track of how much food is left. As long as the timer is positive, food spawns infinitely for the players. Collecting boxes of spam and placing them into the freezer will add time to the countdown. The logic here is that lack of food makes you weak and slow, like when you are damaged. Eating food/taking pills keeps you fast.
I have a working visual timer, and I have the gun store door add 5 minutes to the timer when cola is deposited into it.
Food must stop spawning permanently after timer reaches zero to prevent players from hording food at the base until pain pills are actually needed.
Day/Night
NEEDED: Visible moving sun and moon
A different counter keeps track of whether it is day and night. At night, there are constant onslaughts of hordes and SI, beneficial to stay in the safe area. During the day it's more like campaign, wandering infected, hordes at random intervals. This will encourage exploring during the day and fighting off the horde at night.
This system will also encourage splitting up. Survivors have many goals: food, barricade, stockpiling medkits, maybe ammo. With limited time during the day, in order to get all the supplies, survivors must split up.
Survivor Turns Infected
NEEDED: Figure out the more delicate details of creating scripts that can do this
PROBLEM: Need more incentives for player's choices
May or may not incorporate this. What I want is to create a situation where a player will know hes going to turn into an infected soon, and has to make the choice of either telling his teammates so they can kill him before he turns, or waiting until he turns and trying to kill his teammates. The idea is, if his teammates kill him, he will never come back unless they have a defib(very limited). This means that player will not be able to do anything for a long time. But if he decides to wait and become an infected, he can continue playing by killing the survivors.
I believe this is possible. I saw a script that was able to force players to change to the infected side.
NPCs
NEEDED: Figure out how to do this
May or may not incorporate this. Computer AIs can be found that will either be hostile or friendly. I believe I saw a script that was able to create NPCs, but I'm unsure. I'm also equally unsure if NPC's can be created that will shoot the players.
I thought it may be interesting to have a crazed gun store owner that shoots at you if you come near his store. but if you get in or kill him there are guns and ammo and what not.
Dynamic Map
A map of the town at the safe area that the players can mark as explored, or having important items need to come back to.
**Infected Changes**
Common
NEEDED: Look at scripts to figure out how to do this
Might make them slower to accommodate use of melee weapons. I either want a mix of fast and slow infected, or they become gradually faster and faster as the game progresses. I'm thinking a mix of fast and slow may not be possible.
I also want them to only be killed by headshots, like like traditional zombies
Special
I think I might leave specials alone. People might complain that having only melee weapons makes special infect very hard to fight. But they're pretty easy to fight if the survivors stick close together and act quickly. The only real problems I could see are boomers, chargers, and smokers. Chargers aren't so bad, it just kinda sucks that when they are disoriented after charging and hitting a wall, they can still hit you. Smokers shouldn't be so bad either, it's part of the challenge. And boomers, well, it encourages teamwork, having one person kill the boomer and then the others protect him.
Witch
NEEDED: Look at scripts to figure out how to do this
I think the witch is ridiculously easy to avoid. So I want her to become startled faster by those walking around her, and almost instantly if a flashlight is shown on her.
Epic Tank
I want to make the tank battles more like an epic fight. The tank will have a huge amount of health, but will not be able to one shot incap players, even on expert. Hordes and SI will also continue to spawn as you battle the tank.