Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead - FUCK NO SPORTING GOODS STORES

[NeverGoWest]

[QUOTE=matt000024;48383990]Someone should make a mod that removes this bullshitty stuff next stable release. It's not too hard to fix, but I'm personally lazy.[/QUOTE]

I have been thinking of forking this game for a while to bring it back to its honourable "left 4 dead zombie survival roguelike" state, as in not being developed by a bunch of turbonerds that just want to recreate their anime/furry/fnaf power fetishes in an entirely unrelated ASCII game about zombies.

I didn't know C++ though, I am learning it now.

Cataclysm: Facepunch Fork, anyone?

First tweak will be bringing back fast zombies, then removing all memes, all Five Night's at Freddies references, cutting out all half-arsed "I don't play the game so I am going to add a redundant feature" shit, making the actually dangerous creatures dangerous again, and debuffing wildlife + removing all the bullshit instakill zombies.

Following update will remove all anime references, change "Otaku" to not say "watching anime with your friends"

Adding shit that has been missing for a long while, like goats, tobacco shops, weed dispensaries, re-adding variations of store layouts(I loved the different types of gun stores, they got replaced by the concrete box of autism induced artificial difficulty that is the current gun store layout)

When I git gud enough at C++ I will try to work on cutting out needless bullshit, bullshit that doesnt fit in the original theme of the game. Making the game less of a bloatfest, add more dynamics and mechanical depth instead of artificial difficulty.

There will be strict requirements to being able to contribute:

No furries
No bronies
No memers
No weaboos
Actually test your edits, tweaks and additions
Actually actively play the game
Actively contribute to making Cataclysm more like Cataclysm and less like "hey guys I added a vore mutation xddddd crossdresser trait!!!!!! hay guise i moded josn fiel and aded duh family guise maymay xddddddd"

[MuffinZerg]

[QUOTE=NeverGoWest;48383888]Another case of autism buffed difficulty: Now something as simple as boarding up windows and doors requires level 1 in construction. This is dumb, I am not a carpenter, but I know how to hold a fucking board to a fucking door or window and how to use a hammer.

Do these people just work on the source code for the sake of working on it? Do they ever play the game? Do they even live lives, their "realism tweaks" barely even reflect reality, and this game never will because its a god damn ASCII "roguelike"

[editline]5th August 2015[/editline]

Where is the Cataclysm I knew and loved, where is Whales.[/QUOTE]

You know that you can complain on cata dda forums or post an issue on github and not pointlessly rage here?

Also adding a feature is not easy. Anything you try to add goes throught moderation by the github repo maintainers.

[NeverGoWest]

[QUOTE=MuffinZerg;48384950]You know that you can complain on cata dda forums or post an issue on github and not pointlessly rage here?

Also adding a feature is not easy. Anything you try to add goes throught moderation by the github repo maintainers.[/QUOTE]

This is what forking is for, it creates an entire new repo based on the sourcecode. Do you even opensource, bruh?

[MuffinZerg]

[QUOTE=NeverGoWest;48385104]This is what forking is for, it creates an entire new repo based on the sourcecode. Do you even opensource, bruh?[/QUOTE]

I do.

And you are extremely, [b]extremely[/b] ambitious thinking you can start a running cata dda fork.
I am saying it as someone who tried to contribute to cataclysm dda.

And even if you manage to set up the whole infrastructure, change the things you want without breaking everything to hell and back, get people to care about the thing... what for? Why not just help the whole community by suggesting your changes?

Whatever I said is only valid as long as your planned changes go further then changing some json. And if you are just changing some json you can just make a .zip archieve of json files for fellow facepunch users to use. Just copy and paste and you are playing NeverGoWest's version of cataclysm.

I am pretty sure building layouts are json, item lists are json, enemy lists are json.
You don't even need any C++ coding to remove all the enemies, buildings and items you dislike.

[ChaosUnleash]

I think a lot of the problem with this game comes from the fact that the people who add stuff have different ideal levels of thought in their head. An example is the shocker zombies, which can pretty much instantly kill you but only if you're holding onto something metal. When you sit and think about it it makes sense but there's not really anything in the game that explains this clearly, so it can be really confusing for newer players who haven't had a look at the code or read the wiki (which is probably hideously out of date by now).

There are some features which are entirely obvious and others which are VERY subtle and it's kind of annoying that there's nothing that explains it clearly. I keep thinking the fliers/papers that are scattered around with pointless messages could hint at game play mechanics. I'm totally down for things being left for the player to figure out but some stuff is incredibly cryptic and/or just silly to withhold from the player.

I've toyed with the idea of making a mod which swaps out all of the written 'junk' items in the game to instead show hints about the gameplay, so that everything you read has SOME meaning of some sort. I am a fan of things being relevant.

[StrawberryClock]

Even after someone thoroughly explained to me in precise detail the melee system to me on the Cata forum, I still have no idea how it works.

Probably black magic.

[Anderan]

I feel like Cataclysm almost has too much content now. I only ever maybe use 10% of the cooking recipes.

[DrBones]

[QUOTE=ChaosUnleash;48385761]I think a lot of the problem with this game comes from the fact that the people who add stuff have different ideal levels of thought in their head. An example is the shocker zombies, which can pretty much instantly kill you but only if you're holding onto something metal. When you sit and think about it it makes sense but there's not really anything in the game that explains this clearly, so it can be really confusing for newer players who haven't had a look at the code or read the wiki (which is probably hideously out of date by now).

There are some features which are entirely obvious and others which are VERY subtle and it's kind of annoying that there's nothing that explains it clearly. I keep thinking the fliers/papers that are scattered around with pointless messages could hint at game play mechanics. I'm totally down for things being left for the player to figure out but some stuff is incredibly cryptic and/or just silly to withhold from the player.

I've toyed with the idea of making a mod which swaps out all of the written 'junk' items in the game to instead show hints about the gameplay, so that everything you read has SOME meaning of some sort. I am a fan of things being relevant.[/QUOTE]

Editing item descriptions is actually pretty easy. The only difficulty is in actually [I]finding[/I] what you want to edit.

If you're going to add useful information to flyers, I'd probably start with adding descriptions on common diseases, and how to treat them. I haven't checked the wiki in a while, but I don't recall it explaining how to cure tetanus or the common cold.

[ChaosUnleash]

[QUOTE=Anderan;48385937]I feel like Cataclysm almost has too much content now. I only ever maybe use 10% of the cooking recipes.[/QUOTE]

I know what you mean. I always feel that there are areas of the game that contain far too many items that have little effect on gameplay, and then areas of the game that could contain MORE things. Food is getting a bit silly because people like to add their favourite foods to the game. I think guns were sort of heading that way but for whatever reason it felt right to have loads of different guns.

I myself am guilty of this, I have a mod which adds slush machines to gas stations. You can use the slush machines to produce various flavours of slush which all do something different (one tastes bad but fills you, one is the opposite, there's an energy drink slush, a cough syrup slush, I was inspired by the mixed drinks with funky effects in Dead Rising). I keep it to myself and use it because slush makes me happy! I guess other people make these things and they find their way into the main game and we end up with hundreds of ways to combine bread and a meat.

I haven't decided if I want more specialised shops or not. It'd be kinda funny to have those mobile phone shops that also sell cigarettes and legal (and illegal if you ask nicely) highs.

[QUOTE=eatdembeanz;48385939]Editing item descriptions is actually pretty easy. The only difficulty is in actually [I]finding[/I] what you want to edit.

If you're going to add useful information to flyers, I'd probably start with adding descriptions on common diseases, and how to treat them. I haven't checked the wiki in a while, but I don't recall it explaining how to cure tetanus or the common cold.[/QUOTE]

I'll certainly have a look tomorrow when I'm not falling asleep at my desk. I'm sure there will be people who disagree with me, but I think that when playing a game everything you read should either explain a gameplay mechanic or be a meaningful addition to the game's storyline/lore. I'm not really a fan of some random advert for a movie which isn't in the game whatsoever (I'm FAIRLY sure cinemas aren't in the game, at least I've never encountered one).

EDIT: Illnesses that don't show up on the status screen annoy me, too. I had a character who moaned about itchy veins for ages and I had no idea what on Earth was going on. Eventually I found some anti parasite drugs, took them to see what would happen and got a success message and then the itching stopped but I really wish I'd known about it in advance or something.

[DrBones]

[QUOTE=ChaosUnleash;48386053]
I haven't decided if I want more specialised shops or not. It'd be kinda funny to have those mobile phone shops that also sell cigarettes and legal (and illegal if you ask nicely) highs.
[/QUOTE]

Personally, I think more automats would be great. This is, after all, the future where you can buy Internal Furnaces at the hardware store and gun stores are more reinforced than military outposts.

The fact that cash cards are damn-near useless except for getting plastic bottles and gas is a disgrace.

[mastermaul]

[QUOTE=ChaosUnleash;48386053]I think guns were sort of heading that way but for whatever reason it felt right to have loads of different guns.[/QUOTE]

This is a community that for the longest time thought adding WWII era weapons would be completely ridiculous, with the assumption that old guns completely disintegrated after a few decades.

...Then they added ACW percussion revolvers and the usual sovietphile shit.

[SuperPlamz]

I've been playing Cataclysm since the very first public release, so I'm a bit biased here, but I feel like the direction of the game has turned from"Let's make a functioning roguelike!" to "LOL LET'S ADD EVERYTHING XDDD". Some more quality control is desperately needed IMO.

Speaking of which, anyone have any ideas on how to get into a gun store? At the moment, I'm thinking I'm going to have to do the same methods as getting into a bank vault: explosives or ramming the fuck out of it with cars. I find it easier to get into a lab or military bunker, because at least you can ID card those open.

[mastermaul]

[QUOTE=SuperPlamz;48387766]I've been playing Cataclysm since the very first public release, so I'm a bit biased here, but I feel like the direction of the game has turned from"Let's make a functioning roguelike!" and more "LOL LET'S ADD EVERYTHING XDDD". Some more quality control is desperately needed IMO.

Speaking of which, anyone have any ideas on how to get into a gun store? At the moment, I'm thinking I'm going to have to do the same methods as getting into a bank vault: explosives or ramming the fuck out of it with cars. I find it easier to get into a lab or military bunker, because at least you can ID card those open.[/QUOTE]

Sledge hammer is the easiest.

[MuffinZerg]

[QUOTE=SuperPlamz;48387766]I've been playing Cataclysm since the very first public release, so I'm a bit biased here, but I feel like the direction of the game has turned from"Let's make a functioning roguelike!" to "LOL LET'S ADD EVERYTHING XDDD". Some more quality control is desperately needed IMO.

Speaking of which, anyone have any ideas on how to get into a gun store? At the moment, I'm thinking I'm going to have to do the same methods as getting into a bank vault: explosives or ramming the fuck out of it with cars. I find it easier to get into a lab or military bunker, because at least you can ID card those open.[/QUOTE]

Sledge, jackhammer, sonic resonator CBM, teleporters, that CBM that allows to teleport throught walls

[NeverGoWest]

And nobody has suggested just picking the lock. It's gonna take a lot of lockpicks, but they can easily be made from scrap metal, which you can get from bashing the lockers in the shelter.

I am going to fork this thing as soon as I get home, we need to do it before they just decide to wipe all the code and turn it into an ASCII graphics furry dating sim or some shit like that.

[MuffinZerg]

[QUOTE=NeverGoWest;48388521]And nobody has suggested just picking the lock. It's gonna take a lot of lockpicks, but they can easily be made from scrap metal, which you can get from bashing the lockers in the shelter.

I am going to fork this thing as soon as I get home, we need to do it before they just decide to wipe all the code and turn it into an ASCII graphics furry dating sim or some shit like that.[/QUOTE]

You are exaggerating.

[mastermaul]

I'm going to mostly disagree with the too many options being a problem thing. I kind of like it, within limits.

If society just disappeared tomorrow, and you had to go around breaking into now-abandoned houses to survive, you would find a massive variety of largely uninteresting or useless objects.

Cataclysm is cool because it emulates that aspect of scavenging. I love the massive amount of variety, but only because it's pretty much the only game that does (or can do) it. It doesn't need to be concise like a traditional roguelike, because it's not a traditional roguelike. It's fun making do with the giant heap of bullshit you manage to scrounge up.

I agree that the content consisting of special interest and meme related garbage is pretty terrible though. We could easily be stuck with the FNAF shit being in the base game as opposed to an optional mod, which isn't a world I want to live in.

[Anderan]

[QUOTE=mastermaul;48388725]within limits.[/QUOTE]

That's the growing issue, it's started to kinda move beyond adding to the game and just adding stuff for the sake of having stuff.

[MuffinZerg]

The issues should be adressed on the game's forums. I am pretty sure a lot of community members share the same ideas.

[ChaosUnleash]

The reason I was initially drawn to Cata was that it was a 'shit has hit the fan' simulator. You were thrown into this world that was beyond apocalyptic levels. Zombies, monsters, demons, security bots trying to deal with it by killing everything, mushrooms, triffid people...

Then, after getting to grips with not dying to those things, you'd branch out a bit and find military base and science lab ID cards which you could then use to go inside. I still enjoy going into labs now because I'll often notice something new. The experiments going on down there were so interesting, and it was a cool experience to walk through a room full of mutated limbs in tanks.

Maybe via mutation, maybe via bionics, or maybe via just being a bad-ass, you'd eventually reach the sort of stage where you can safely defeat any enemy without much trouble and at that point you'd go and try the end game stuff and either die due to how BS they were or truly be able to change the world in some way. Getting rid of a triffid base and seeing them die down to nothing was incredibly satisfying. There was this genuine sense of progression and the threats you faced changed during the game. The occasional land mine or moose never bothered me because that's kinda the spirit of the game. Shit has just hit the fan and will continue to do so.

All of these things are still in the game, and it still has that same 'wow' factor in regards to the size and scope of the world. It just feels like a few things are poorly explained and some other things are needlessly complex. This is because loads of people are all having input and adding in whatever they happen to want at the time, and it's not making the experience TERRIBLE it's just making things more frustrating than they should really be.

I feel like a lot of the annoying stuff comes down to people deciding that there's a need to lock out certain content. Locking out gun stores doesn't really make sense, at least not EVERY store. Surely a store that sells simple pistols and basic shotguns wouldn't be completely 100% locked down to the point where it's easier to take a chunk out of the wall than it is to break the window... It sort of forces your character to take a different route because once you're able to break into the building you've probably already built up some decent combat skills elsewhere so the guns would not be worth bothering with.

[Svinpels]

High-end/low-end versions of stores with a certain level of items in them would be an awesome addition.
Like fancy grocery shops having caviar and shit, and clothing stores with larger numbers of "stylish" clothing.
(Haven't played in a while, so for all I know this may have already been added)

[Ghost656]

[QUOTE=NeverGoWest;48388521]And nobody has suggested just picking the lock. It's gonna take a lot of lockpicks, but they can easily be made from scrap metal, which you can get from bashing the lockers in the shelter.

I am going to fork this thing as soon as I get home, we need to do it before they just decide to wipe all the code and turn it into an ASCII graphics furry dating sim or some shit like that.[/QUOTE]
The fuck are you on about?
They won't turn it into any dating sim jesus christ.
Why do you even BELIEVE they will wipe the code at any moment???
I know you like to joke about the furry shit but now you're just overdoing it.
It's like you literally think it's turning into a furry fetishist game

I understand the stupid meme shit that needs to be purged but seriously calm down

[SuperPlamz]

I'm pretty certain he's being sarcastic or referring to the massive furry drama that went on a few years ago.

[Ghost656]

Yeah that was a few years ago.

[ChaosUnleash]

[QUOTE=Svinpels;48389151]High-end/low-end versions of stores with a certain level of items in them would be an awesome addition.
Like fancy grocery shops having caviar and shit, and clothing stores with larger numbers of "stylish" clothing.
(Haven't played in a while, so for all I know this may have already been added)[/QUOTE]

Yeah this, with them all showing up on the map as their simple name.

You go to a 'resteraunt' and you have no idea if it's posh or not. That's what I'd like to see.

[Svinpels]

[QUOTE=ChaosUnleash;48389392]Yeah this, with them all showing up on the map as their simple name.

You go to a 'resteraunt' and you have no idea if it's posh or not. That's what I'd like to see.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, and you'd look for a grocery store only to find a all-organic market, no security, no junk-food, but everything is rotten :v:

[ChaosUnleash]

[QUOTE=Svinpels;48389542]Yeah, and you'd look for a grocery store only to find a all-organic market, no security, no junk-food, but everything is rotten :v:[/QUOTE]

That'd also add a bit more meaning to the 'hates fruit/veggies/meat' perks too, rather than just sort of accepting that a chunk of everything you find is useless, you might have to specifically hunt for a store with what you want in it!

Also I think it'd be cool if shops had like cash registers which you could buy items with money, if you leave the store WITHOUT paying for your stuff, the alarm goes off which attracts zombies. Might make cash cards somewhat useful.

[NeverGoWest]

[QUOTE=SuperPlamz;48389183]I'm pretty certain he's being sarcastic or referring to the massive furry drama that went on a few years ago.[/QUOTE]

I was actually doing both with a hyperbole.

[editline]6th August 2015[/editline]

[QUOTE=ChaosUnleash;48389392]Yeah this, with them all showing up on the map as their simple name.

You go to a 'resteraunt' and you have no idea if it's posh or not. That's what I'd like to see.[/QUOTE]

That is actually already a capability, a few stables back in an experimental there were variations in gun stores, since then some sperg decided to turn all gun stores into reinforced concrete bunkers.

Notice how the houses have different variants? That is a JSON thing, you can have one map tile type with variants.

I generally don't understand why some of the "contributors" think it's so important to debuff everything that doesnt fit their furry/anime related power fetish character builds. It's not a multiplayer game, and the game is already pretty much "roll a dice and maybe you are a cyborg zombie grinder but most likely you will be gibs from a landmine detonation within the first 10 turns"(this actually happens to me frequently)

Besides that, if you ever get to be lucky enough to find a gun store, and survive long enough to have the means to break into it, chances that it spawns very little ammunition or shitloads of ammunition that isn't compatible with any weapons in the store, if any spawned at all. The entire thought of getting useless loot from busting ass finding resources for busting inside makes me avoid gun stores entirely.

You have more luck finding a house with a basement full of guns and ammo from what I have experienced.

[Anderan]

I've made a habit of always putting 10 into perception so that I can see the landmines.

[ChaosUnleash]

[QUOTE=NeverGoWest;48392578]
That is actually already a capability, a few stables back in an experimental there were variations in gun stores, since then some sperg decided to turn all gun stores into reinforced concrete bunkers.
[/QUOTE]

I've been talking about this to many people in different places so maybe I didn't mention the previous gun store variation here. The game has the capacity to allow for multiple types of the same thing, as you said. That's what I was getting at when I said we should perhaps lower the overall number of different building tiles but increase the number of variations. Is there a real need to have 'pizza parlor', 'fast food restaurant', and all the others (I honestly can't remember them all off the top of my head). Could just have cafe and restaurant and then add all the different types in. This would probably also help alleviate the problem of their being seemingly thousands of useless food items. You'd no longer see them as useless food items, you'd see them as food - and you'd have to take whatever you could find.

As for the land mines, it's pretty much entirely random. I usually stick 10 points in perception to see them but my longest living characters usually had only 8 base perception. I suppose this is something that could be added to the flyers or whatever. Perception seems like a useless stat at face value because it's never made clear what you can see when the levels are raised.

It'd be cool if in the character creation screen where it says XX ranged penalty it could also light up and say 'basic traps visible' when you hit 10 points. More clarity would be nice.

I should actually add that in my version I edited gunstores to have normal windows because it seemed stupid to lock them out.

More likely insane waffling:
I feel that the fun part of Cata was the risk/reward system that it had. More difficult areas would offer better items, and this was generally consistent. Making gunstores impossible to get into pretty much ruined this for me because it meant that any character I made would either have to start with/magically discover a way to consistently get into the gun stores OR I'd have to start with skill in another area of combat. I basically ended up with a sword wielding melee character every time because once I'd managed to break into the three required gunstores to have a gun and some ammo for it IO'd probably be at around melee skill 4/5 and I'd probably have a very strong weapon - to the point where stabbing something would do more damage than shooting it.