undead-interest

[undead-interest]

Adding more knowledge skills

In State of Decay 2, there are four core skills for a survivor, with a 5th skill slot reserved for knowledge skills, basically stuff that can help out the community, like medicine, gardening, and chemistry. All of these skills can can be upgraded into two specialized knowledge skills. Medicine, for example, can be specialized into surgery for injuries or pathology for infections. However, the 5th slot can also be taken up by quirk skills. They are similar to knowledge skills, except that they are more rare and will only have one level. They vary in usefulness from scrum certification to sexting, but there are also some that give unique knowledge not regularly available in the knowledge books. The most common of the knowledge quirks are art and influence, which have various skills that grant them. So I propose that these knowledge be given their own community skills.

[undead-interest]

I have been obsessed with State of Decay 2's leader system. While it is bare-bones-ly simple and the accompanying missions are uninteresting narrative-wise, I consider it perfect suitable archetypes for systems of government set in an apocalyptic setting. The Warlord aims to take total control of everything they can in the name of stability. The Sheriff is responsible for the safety and well-being of the people they care for. The Trader wants to help establish connections between distant suppliers and buyers. And the Builder constructs an impenetrable base to be safe from hostiles.

But there is only so much I can enjoy from the same cycle of leader and legacy quests in SOD2. So, I imagined the world of Decaying Plague, a post-apocalyptic world where I can freely write how these archetypes can co-exist and conflict set in the ruined city of Williamsburg, Michigan.

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Ideas for a Warlord-type of leader

Warlords, in State of Decay 2, are leaders that supposedly base their authority through strength. Yet in the game, nothing really says to the ideology to its typical conclusion; that their authority over the land will mirror a dictatorship. Sure, there are options to kill other survivors to get your way, but they aren't in-depth enough or lasting to mean anything. They are quite literally just stepping stones to an empty legacy. So here's my propitiation: make the Warlord more authoritative. Make them feel like they are ruling with an iron-fist. Maybe even to the point where they seem like the bad guy.

MISSIONS

When playing as a warlord or working for one, the survivors should be enforcing their strength over the other survivors. The missions in the warlord quest line should reflect that abuse of authority.

Demanding Tribute - Most people dislike the idea of paying anything to an oppressive power, but they won't have much of a choice. The best way to ensure that someone is under your thumb is to demand something of them, most likely something that both you, the warlord, and the oppressed want, like food, ammo, for medicine. When starting a Warlord run, the warlord will start demanding resources from a nearby enclave. The enclave members will start calling your bluff, until you do something drastic. For a more 'moral' play through, there will be an option to take down a Juggernaut or a hoard down to show that you have the strength to back up your words. If you want to end things quicker, threaten the enclave, making them hostile until you kill one member, similar to the route in the arms dealer quest. Once one of the members is dead, they will back down and hand over a rucksack in exchange for peace.

Dismantling Dissent - Obviously, people are going to talk about your regime, mostly complaining that it mirrors a dictatorship (Which is the point), but these comments could turn into a proper revolt if left unchecked. When an enclave has been untouched by your community for sometime, one of their members will begin mouthing off, claiming that they could take you on. You can make them eat those words by fighting them to ensure they shut up. Or you can bribe them with a rucksack you're not in the mood to kill someone.

Cutting Loose Ends - If someone is not with you, they are against you, at least from the view of a power-hungry leader. If someone is not respecting your rule, you need to deal with them as their neutrality could pose a liability. When an enclave has been neutral for sometime, the Warlord will see this as a possible threat. Traveling to the neutral enclave, you will have two options; Kill the enclave or threaten them, similar to the warlord legacy quest. If your threat is successful, they will instantly become allies.

No Competition - When you're at the top, there will eventually be something itching to knock you down and take your place. That's what this quest will be. A new enclave will appear on the map, boasting about their prowess. As the warlord, you have to make sure that they know their place in your land. When facing the enclave, you can either kill them all, or just their leader to make sure the others know their place.

The warlord in State of Decay 2 is not the menace you expect a warlord to be. Yes, they can kill more people in their quest than the other leader types, but I feel with these changes, they can be a genuine threat that people like the dictator-dismantlering Coalition would try to fight against. But in the end, no one must get in the way of total peace.

[undead-interest]

Hello there, survivors!

I am obsessed with the zombie genre. Not much the bleaker aspects like the gore of zed practices or the betrayal of desperate people. I like the idea of how humanity can band together and build a new world against insurmountable and unwavering threat of an unfeeling enemy.

Mostly, I am writing from the State of Decay's idea of the zombie apocalypse, with mutated zombies, a virus transmittable from specific type of deadheads, and survivors with unique skills build a community under one defined leader.

This blog will mostly contain my ideas for this niche interest. Enjoy!