Dead Island Riptide Windows, PS3, X360 game

About Dead Island Riptide with 2 comments by Adeno on May 15th, 2013

Video of V9 in Action:

Greetings everyone! I'm Adeno, the maker of the George Romero Survival Horror Edition mod! Thank you for your continued support and for your patience. I know that you've been looking forward to V9, and although it took some time, it's finally available for you to enjoy!

Dynamic Fighting System (aka Realistic Damage):

So what's new with the latest version of this mod? We are now currently at version 9 of the mod, and this time a new battle system has been introduced. It is called the "Dynamic Fighting System", or simply "Realistic Damage". The reason for creating this new battle system is that in the previous versions of the mod, killing zombies was too easy no matter what weapon you were using. For example, in the old versions, a golf club is just as good as a sword and it only takes one hit to a zombie's head to kill it. Some of the mod users also agreed with me on this, and that's why I had to figure out a way to make dealing with zombies challenging again.

As the name of the new battle system implies, the way you fight zombies will change depending on the situation and the weapon that you are using. Gone are the days of one-hit-zombie-head-explosions even if you're just using a golf club or brass knuckles (but of course you can still have it if you choose to), only firearms are capable of killing zombies with a single bullet to the head now.

Each Weapon is Different:

In order to create a survival horror battle experience that has some basis on reality, the first thing I had to do was classify each weapon according to how effective they would be, at least in theory, in causing severe damage to the head or a brain of a zombie in "real life". For example, items that were not designed for combat, like golf clubs, paddles, and other smaller and weaker things, won't be very effective against zombies unless you hit the head correctly and deal critical damage. Items like medium sized knives, sickles, farming tools and the like are more effective than things made for recreational entertainment. Of course, weapons made for the purpose of killing or at least those that are very dangerous to use (and require safety equipment to use in real life situations), such as swords, big blades, axes, and sledgehammers, are the most effective to use to destroy a zombie's head.

I think that giving each weapon different effectiveness in battle is very important in order to provide a fun but challenging survival horror experience. Think about it, why should a golf club be just as strong as a sword with hitting a zombie's head? That doesn't make sense, because in a "realistic" environment, weapons don't have levels. You will always have a better chance of slicing off a zombie's head than smashing it with a golf club, simply because golf clubs were not designed for hurting people, but instead, they're used for playing golf.

Different Weapons Mean Different Strategies:

Since each weapon has different effectiveness when fighting zombies, it is only natural to have all sorts of battle strategies depending on what combination of weapons you have. For example, when fighting the classic slow Romero zombies, you can easily defeat even two of them at the same time with a golf club. You can just kick them down and deal the killing blow to the head while they're in their most vulnerable state.

The situation quickly changes when you're faced with four or more zombies at the same time. Even if you try to kick them down to quickly kill them, some of them will eventually grab or hit you from your blind side and you won't have time to kill the fallen zombie. Although it's harder to kill a group of zombies with just a golf club, it's possible with some time. On the other hand, if you had a katana or a powerful weapon like a sledgehammer, you won't have much trouble destroying a zombie's head and even a group won't be much of a trouble for you.

Just because an item is not ideal for battle doesn't mean it's totally useless. For example, you have a katana. You know that it's a very good weapon and can kill zombies fast. The problem is, if you keep using it, the durability will also decrease and it might break at the worst possible time. This is where the weaker weapons come in. For non-threatening situations, you can simply use a golf club or something else to deal with the immediate problem, and then switch to the katana when it's an emergency.

Of course, the battle strategy also changes depending on what type of zombie you chose to play with. If you chose the modern fast zombies, fighting a group of four with just a golf club would already be a good challenge, while facing more is suicide. Of course, you can also use guns for guaranteed one hit headshot kills, but will you have enough time to aim at each zombie's head before they reach you?

This is the beauty and thrill of the Dynamic Fighting System. Each weapon has a purpose, it's up to you to formulate your battle plan according to what you have, what you're fighting, and where you are.

Solving the Puzzle of Realistic Damage:

For my first few experiments, I tried changing the damage values of weapons. Unfortunately, this didn't seem to work for weapons spawned in the world. For example, one time I set the golf club's damage to 10, but in the game it still appeared as over 200. I figured that maybe, the prefix that appears before the name of an item has something to do with a weapon's stats when it gets spawned into the world.

I tried finding ways on how to remove the prefix system but I couldn't come up with the answer. While studying the inventory_gen file, I noticed that each type of weapon at the very bottom seems to be configured in such a way that would take in values from a level table. The biggest hint that this had something to do with the prefix system was that each weapon was divided in terms of rarity, and it was taking in a few values, which matched what I saw previously. I then "forced" the values into only giving out 100 no matter what level the weapon was. When I checked back in the game, I was pleasantly surprised that I finally succeeded in manipulating the prefix system. I didn't have to take it away, I just had to give it my own values to get the desired result.

Of course, that was just part of the challenge that I solved. After testing, I realized that at higher levels, a damage base of 100 to weapons won't really damage a zombie's head that much anymore. Solving this problem was a lot easier, I simply raised the default value for a player's critical damage. Since a critical hit to the head will now kill a zombie, it was time to solve the final challenge.

For the final task, I gave each weapon group a certain chance for inflicting critical damage to a zombie's head. The weaker weapons, like golf clubs, paddles, and the like, have 10% chance to smash a zombie's head right away. One out of ten seems like a good chance for weak weapons. Average weapons have 20% chance to crush or decapitate a zombie, while really deadly weapons like big sledgehammers, swords, machetes, maces, and others have 30% chance in killing a zombie right away. Legendary Weapons, being special, expensive, and rare, have 50% of causing instant death by hitting a zombie's head.

With my special configuration of lowered prefix damage, high critical hit damage, and customized critical hit probabilities for each weapon, I was able to create the Dynamic Fighting System.

Closing Words:

Thanks again to everyone for supporting my George Romero Survival Horror Edition mod! I really appreciate everyone's kind wishes and encouragement because winning the computer in this competition is important to me. My current computer is seven years old and not suitable anymore for the type of work and projects that I do. I do 3D modeling and some animation, but my current hardware prevents me from creating highly detailed models over 1 million poly and crashes the programs I work on (Zbrush and 3DS Max). A new and modern computer would help me out a lot!

Have fun, happy gaming, and thank you for supporting me in creating the best experience for Dead Island Riptide! I'll leave you with a picture of a dragon creature I made before, the Dragon of Desire.