State of Decay 2 (XB1)

[bdoughty]

I was going to get this because I enjoyed the first one but I can't find a reason to bite on this one as it pretty much looks the same. I was hoping for a lot more stuff.

How much stuff do you need my friend? I can give you stuff in game. Lots of stuff if necessary. Can drop stuff on the ground, let you dig into my stash for stuff, break down rucksacks full of stuff or you can dig in the back of my pick em up truck and get stuff from the back of the cab. Stuff can't be the issue because I can provide stuff out the wazoo. Stuff you never ever saw in the original game. Fresh stuff 100% guaranteed.

Also in regards to stuff, since the topic has not yet been exhausted. Each of the three maps in the game are as large as the whole map in SOD1. So more land = more stuff.

[SmoothPancakes]

Me and Smooth got some co-op last night. Worked pretty well outside of a few disconnects on my end and small lag but nothing unplayable. Also for some crazy reason it would let me use the door slam right when we joined up but after getting out and back in every door was off limits (happened both sessions). The way they split up and let everyone have certain loot crates to rummage through works well. Plus you can drop any item on the ground for someone else to get. Playing Co-op serves a solid purpose as you get to take back influence (basically money/player XP) and loot back to your base. Plus you get rewards for playing multiplayer after each session. In the two sessions it gave me a bunch of painkillers and other first aid items that may not seem like much for someone not playing this game but they are welcome to my lovable group of misfits.

A couple patches and we can really have something special here. Offline and Co-op.

Hope you are enjoying that new house. Got lucky an bought it 30 minutes later and nobody was inside it to begin with so we just rolled in. Then unlucky to have it attacked a by two hordes right after buying it and almost losing a new recruit.

By the way you really have to watch for bloaters laying in the road when playing. I screamed into the headset just a second before you hit one on our first go, realizing I had no mic as my player was melting from the green gas inside the truck. It took like 60% of my players health, thankfully my OCD requires me to keep at 100%. Just one of the fun little things that happen when you play SOD2.

We even had a Metal Gear Solid moment.

That was fun last night! I can't wait for us to get a 3 or 4 person team together! Other than the bit of lag at times, which hopefully can be cleared up with some behind the scenes work by Undead Labs, and the error codes and disconnects you had a couple times, it was pretty solid.

I didn't know that about the doors. Hopefully that's something that will be cleaned up in the day one patch on Tuesday.

I love how they handled loot. Every container I could loot was gold colored, bdoughty had blue containers of his own he could loot (I couldn't interact with them at all), I imagine if we added a third or fourth person, they too would have had their own containers to loot. So everyone does get to loot containers and gets to collect goodies to take back to their own games. All of that on top of the influence and skill experience that you gain as well. So your survivor that you bring into a friend's game still continues building up their skills and getting stronger/better, and you get a ton of free loot to take back to your own game without having to go through and clean out a bunch of buildings in your own world.

I didn't know that about the rewards you get after each session. That's awesome and gives an extra reason to not only play co-op in your own sessions, but also go and join other players sessions, knowing you'll get a nice big reward afterwards. I too would happily take a ton of painkillers and other first aid items. Those are the ones I am struggling with the most, I can't keep a supply of first aid items built up without completely depleting my Medicine resources.

Absolutely agreed, get some of the bugs patched up and a couple other things, and this game is going to be an absolute gem both solo and co-op. I'm hoping the day one patch (which I read somewhere is supposed to be pretty big in size) will squash a lot of the bugs and issues and clean things up right off the bat. Technically right now could still be considered early access/pre-release since the game doesn't even officially launch for another day.

And yeah, sorry about that bloater. I must have taken my eyes off the road ahead of us for a second and didn't notice it until I was already driving over it. I hate those damn bloaters that lay in the road. Goddamn zombie IEDs.

[bdoughty]

Went to the one dept type store in town and got a really cheap headset to get by until I find one on Amazon that I really like and have the money to afford it.

Let's make a simple rule which I am pretty sure we can agree on, no discussion of politics or religion. Also no discussion of OU choking to Georgia would be swell.

[SmoothPancakes]

Went to the one dept type store in town and got a really cheap headset to get by until I find one on Amazon that I really like and have the money to afford it.

Let's make a simple rule which I am pretty sure we can agree on, no discussion of politics or religion. Also no discussion of OU choking to Georgia would be swell.

Awesome! I have a couple things to try to get my A50s working on Xbox One, hopefully they work. Otherwise, worst case, I'll just fall back to the old pair with the broken headband I used last night. At least the mic works on those.

And that rule works for me!

[bdoughty]

And we start on new game #3.

I recruited three people so I could make a move. Did not look at their attributes and it bit me in the ass. One was a criminal and the other was lazy. Both started fights in the group immediately. Two of my mainstays threatened to leave if no action was taken. So I evicted the two bad apples and now the third guy who had great stats and attributes got mad and everything just went to crap. Ended up evicting everyone just to see their reactions to it. Have to admit they differed and in most cases matched the personality of the player. I even followed the last one, which you can't talk to anymore and they just kind walked around for a few minutes then went invincible.

The create a new group w/o tutorial could make for some interesting experiences with certain traits since you can constantly refresh players to get different abilities and traits.. Considering starting with three people who love to talk to plants.

[SmoothPancakes]

And we start on new game #3.

I recruited three people so I could make a move. Did not look at their attributes and it bit me in the ass. One was a criminal and the other was lazy. Both started fights in the group immediately. Two of my mainstays threatened to leave if no action was taken. So I evicted the two bad apples and now the third guy who had great stats and attributes got mad and everything just went to crap. Ended up evicting everyone just to see their reactions to it. Have to admit they differed and in most cases matched the personality of the player. I even followed the last one, which you can't talk to anymore and they just kind walked around for a few minutes then went invincible.

The create a new group w/o tutorial could make for some interesting experiences with certain traits since you can constantly refresh players to get different abilities and traits.. Considering starting with three people who love to talk to plants.

Yeah, paying attention to traits is important! My guy who died in that gun battle with another enclave a couple days ago was one who kept starting fights. I was sad about not having to deal with the fights anymore, but he was a 6 out of 7 star medicine skill, so that really hurt. And of course the person I end up recruiting and replacing him with later also begins starting fights. I haven't evicted anyone yet, but I might if one person keeps starting fights.

Thank god for having books that you can use to train certain skills to survivors, and having some survivors who you can recruit who have no extra skills beyond the four basic ones, so they can be trained new skills.

Oh yeah, I love the create a group option. That's the group I was playing with the other night when we teamed up. I roll and rerolled through probably 50 different random characters until I found the three that I liked with the skill sets that I liked and mostly decent traits.

And I finally figured out the headset issue. When I bought my Astro A50s, I bought the set with the PS4 base station. The Xbox One and the PS4 have different methods of handling audio and microphone. So when you connect the PS4 base station to the Xbox One, it will still give you full audio on the headset, however, the microphone will not work. So I just ordered an Xbox One base station last night. All I have to do is connect my headset on the base station for a few seconds to sync the headset with the Xbox One base station instead of it being currently synced with the PS4 base station and I'll have working mic and audio on the One. Then it'll just be a matter of syncing between the two base stations depending on if I want to use the headset on PS4 or One.

Thankfully, it wasn't as big an issue as it could have been. Before last summer, Astro Gaming didn't sell individual base stations, so I likely would have had to buy an entire second $300 headset and base station designed for use on the Xbox One. Thankfully last summer they started selling the base stations individually, so it's just a matter of buying the Xbox One base station and not having to buy an entire second headset.

Since I chose the faster shipping, 2-3 business days instead of 4-7, I'm hoping to have the XB1 base station here sometime between Wednesday and Friday. Since I only just placed the order last night, even if they got the order shipped out today, I seriously doubt it'd make it here by tomorrow, so Wednesday is likely the earliest. Until the base station arrives, if we end up teaming up again at all between now and then, I'll just roll with my old broken headset that can be plugged directly into the controller. At least that way I'll have a working mic. Only issue is the headband is broken, so the headset doesn't sit tight on the ears, which is more an annoyance than anything else.

[bdoughty]

I need glasses or move closer to the TV. How many hours I have wasted not knowing this trick? Too many. Just need a parking space.

[SmoothPancakes]

I need glasses or move closer to the TV. How many hours I have wasted not knowing this trick? Too many. Just need a parking space.

Oh yeah, I found out about that Saturday. If I'm just swinging by the base real quick to unload a ton of loot before heading right back out, I just do that, stand at the trunk, unload my stuff into the trunk and RT it all to storage. Saves time having to actually run into the base.

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[SmoothPancakes]

An update on my community. I am currently in the middle of day 19. I was planning a move to Camp Kelenqua, since my next goal for my builder legacy is to look for a new base for some "elbow room", but I decided to stay at Mazzara Farm and denied my survivor's request to look for a new base. After setting up a power outpost, I ditched my generator and built a hydroponics.

I got rid of my level 2 farm and built a staging area instead, which wipes out the -3 material per day costs from Barracks 2, Hydroponics and Infirmary 3. Then to put me in the positive, I have a temporary material outpost (gonna get rid of at some point for something else) and I get +1 material per day from Workshop 3, so I actually gain +2 materials per day right now.

In addition to the hydroponics and staging area, I have a Workshop 3, Infirmary 3 and Barracks 2 (so I have a total of 10 beds right now including the built-in ones).

Having hydroponics, with power and water, +30% Food Yield thanks to the "Fertile Soil" passive for being at Mazzara Farm, a Fertilizer mod that gives me +50% Food Yield and then boosting yields (+100% Food Per Day for 1 hour, 31 minutes) thanks to having knowledge of gardening, knowledge of agriculture and a hell of a lot of boxes of seeds, along with one food outpost that I established early in the game, I am currently producing 10.4 food/day.

I get +8.4 from hydroponics, +1 from the food outpost, and +1 because my leader has the Agriculture skill, which gives +1 food/day in addition to knowledge of gardening and knowledge of agriculture. And since I currently only have 9 survivors, I'm gaining +1.4 food per day. I could dump my food outpost and still gain +0.4 food per day. So I never have to worry about food again.

I do lose 2 meds per day because of having Infirmary 3, and since I only have one fuel outpost at the moment, I lose one fuel per day to my power outpost. Ammo and Parts are both at 0/day and because I have a survivor who has the skill Political Science, he gives me +25 Influence per day.

So I am pretty much self sufficient at Mazzara Farm. Drop the material outpost and pick up a second gas outpost would zero out the -2 gas per day that the power outpost uses. And if I can ever find that damn +2 outpost mod from a trader, I can pick up two medicine outposts and bam, I'll have every resource either zeroed out for costs per day or I'll actually be gaining resources per day.

As I said, I'm already on day 19 with my community, all of it in the Valley map, and I could stay conceivably forever. With gaining materials every day, I can keep breaking materials down into parts, so I'll always have parts to repair melee weapons and guns. I have four different ammo mods for my Workshop 3, so I can manufacture my own ammunition for 5.56mm, 7.62mm, .22, 9mm, .45, .357, .44 magnum and 12g shotgun shells. As well I can keep creating vehicle repair kits, quick vehicle repair kits, and all the explosives I could ever want as long as I have parts. As long as I have fuel resource, I can keep creating my own gas cans.

And now that I've destroyed all of the plague hearts and there are no active infestations, I'm up to 64 morale, or Enthusiastic as it's called. Got +200% global action speed, +200% global build action speed and +100% experience rate.

Now it's just a matter of finishing my builder legacy missions and getting that sweet sweet Amenities boon. The Amenities boon from the Builder legacy gives you automatic base-wide water and power at your base with zero costs or noise penalties. So my next community, I'll have water and power the instant I settle my first base and I'll never have to worry about fuel for the power or generators causing noise at my base ever again.

[SmoothPancakes]

Well, after 20 days (and 33 hours of gameplay), the Last Folks Standing Community has come to an end. I finished my final legacy mission for my Builder leader. Spent the last hour going through and loading up the inventories of all 8 heroes in my community with items I want to save and carry over to a new game. Rucksacks of food, medicine, ammo and gas, those two bitchin' anti-material rifles, the really good facility mods (gotta keep that Fertilizer mod that gives me +50% food yields and all the ammo pressing mods for my workshop), books to learn the necessary skills like computers, medicine, craftsmanship, utilities, chemistry, etc.

Everyone has 8-space backpacks, plus 2-3 pockets depending on their skills, so every single of the 8 heroes I can use in future communities are loaded down with one of my best melee weapons, one of my best guns, a rucksack, and 10-11 miscellaneous items (guns, melee weapons, textbooks, facility mods, the good explosives (napalm grenades, thermite grenades, box mines and fuel bombs, a crap ton of parts and circuitry, some vehicle repair toolkits and first aid kits. I even went so far as to completely dismantle every facility in my home site so I could take every last scrap of circuitry with me. No matter which ones I pick, whether I go with three or just one or two and a random to start my next community, I will be WELL prepared!

Edit - Well, thank god I loaded out my two new recruits as well! I thought only those who reached Hero status in your community would carry over and be selectable for future communities, but it turns out all they have to do is be members of the community, whether they be heroes or citizens. I lost one person on the final builder mission when the base was swarmed by probably 100 zombies, two ferals, a couple screamers, a couple bloaters and a juggernaut, but they were just a new recruit, not even citizen, with zero good skills, so I'm not going to miss them.

Now the challenge will be deciding who to take into my new community tomorrow. I want my maxed out automechanic, and my maxed out agriculture person for that sweet sweet food producing bonus to hydroponics, I also want my maxed munitions skill girl, and my guy with nearly maxed metalwork skill, and my guy with a maxed plumbing (and utilities) skill. Medicine I can find someone with in a new recruit or even teach to someone via textbook, so I'm not too concerned there, especially since my only survivor with a medicine skill is a zero star base medicine skill, not even an advanced skill, so I lose nothing with leaving them behind.

[SmoothPancakes]

Also, good news bdoughty! My Xbox One base station for my A50s will be arriving later today. It left Memphis around 8:30pm Wednesday night and as of midnight was sitting in Louisville. Supposed to be here between 2-6pm this afternoon. So I'll finally be able to chat and have a working mic while using my A50s instead of that old broken headset I've been using the last couple times we teamed up. I can also now volunteer to join a random's game and get that achievement since I'll have a mic and be able to communicate with them while I'm in their game.

[bdoughty]

Good to hear. I always play offline so I can pause the game but anytime you want me to join or join in mine just send a quick message or Party invite.

I had my first run in with an enclave that hated me. All I did was ignore their requests which usually leads people to leave. I really hated to waste ammo so I just drove up to the door and honked my horn forcing the zombies to the house and forcing them out. Then it was just a case of running them over a few times. Was not wasting a single bullet on them and they went down after getting hit a couple times and then one finisher.

I went the tutorial route and took the broken up lesbian couple (shocking I know) specifically so I could play the Drucker county map I had not seen. Holy crap on a cracker, that map is evil. Everything is mountainous and side rails galore just waiting to trap your vehicle. A navigating nightmare that eats up gas since you rarely can go straight from point A to point B. Just about to move my group to the Movie Drive Through on the far side of the map. I do have an issue with the tutorial characters. They have little backstories but once you get out of the tutorial and heal the plague it is like they have never met.

[SmoothPancakes]

Yeah, I heard Drucker was pretty mountainy. I'm gonna start up a new community tonight, using a couple people from my first one. Hopefully I get one of the other two maps I haven't played on.

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[jaymo76]

So you can go back and forth between online multiplayer and offline solo and the saves are compatible?

[SmoothPancakes]

So you can go back and forth between online multiplayer and offline solo and the saves are compatible?

Yeah, you basically just jump in and out. I can have my multiplayer set to off so I can pause the game when playing solo, and then it's just a simple switch of an option in the settings and my game is open to all friends to join, come and go as they please.

When bdoughty joined my game last weekend, he would load into it in a building nearby where I was and we could immediately team up. And when he was done, he disappeared from my game and would load back into his.

Anything that he looted in my game, he could either unload into his own storage locker (with all of his items that he had in his game before he joined mine) or he could keep them in his survivor's inventory and unload them into his base storage when he got back into his game.

[bdoughty]

Whew, finally knocked out all the plague hearts. It is not that they were a challenge but in Drucker County it takes forever to get somewhere. Also there does not seem to be as much food resource as I had with the other maps. Had to call in a few searches, though I still need to explore a couple areas on the map. Now at the part where enemy becomes driving on anything other than a road, invisible bloaters that pop up on the road and apparently some bad humans. Humans are easy to take out. Getting a vehicle unstuck is easily the hardest part of the game. Guard Rails with blood plague would be my worst nightmare.

I hope they fix the following in the patch/future patches.

Constant radio request for help. This needs to be reworked. Stop making me pick up material and goods for a group. Quests are fine but this just feels lazy.
Infestations 400 miles away affecting your groups morale.
The ability to free a stuck vehicle.
Remove the motion blur.
A 4k/30fps option and a 1080p/60 fps option. This should be a requirement for every game put on the Xbox One X.


Some people have all the luck (not my footage because I would never be so fortunate).

[SmoothPancakes]

Lmao! Now that's how you take out zombies!

Surprisingly, I ended up right back on Meagher Valley with my brand new community. I guess I'll either have to start a second community or wait until I finish this one to hopefully experience the other maps.

I guess at least this way, now I can actually try out the Camp Kelenqua and Whitney Field bases. I had it set up so nice at Mazzara Farm, I didn't want to leave and have to rebuild everything, so I never left it. This time I may go to Camp Kelenqua for my first move since that also is only 1,000 Influence required. And then consider a late game move to Whitney Field.

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[SmoothPancakes]

I hope they fix the following in the patch/future patches.

Constant radio request for help. This needs to be reworked. Stop making me pick up material and goods for a group. Quests are fine but this just feels lazy.

Infestations 400 miles away affecting your groups morale.

The ability to free a stuck vehicle.

Remove the motion blur.

Yeah, I thought there was supposed to be a day one patch, but I have yet to see anything or get prompted for a patch download. Last I heard, there was a patch, but it was still in quality control at MS and hadn't been approved yet.

Since I'm only on night 2 of my new community, I'm tempted to wait for a couple days, put in some time on Detroit: Become Human and The Show while waiting for the patch to be released.

Either that or maybe I'll jump back into Fallout 4, since I've neglected that since sometime back in November or December. Went through all the work and effort finding the perfect mods and getting them into the correct load order to avoid crashes and conflicts, and then I only got as far as Concord and the beginning of base building at Sanctuary Hills before I got distracted on a different game.

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[bdoughty]

I was assuming there was a patch waiting on certification. Apparently they are not even that far in. On the bright side at least they acknowledged that it is in the works.

We are hear you all, and are zealously working on the first patch that we will release ASAP! Thanks to all for the constructive feedback and for taking the time to report bugs to sod2@microsoft.com! 🧟*♀️🧟*♂️

— Undead Labs (@undeadlabs) May 30, 2018

[SmoothPancakes]

I was assuming there was a patch waiting on certification. Apparently they are not even that far in. On the bright side at least they acknowledged that it is in the works.

We are hear you all, and are zealously working on the first patch that we will release ASAP! Thanks to all for the constructive feedback and for taking the time to report bugs to sod2@microsoft.com! 🧟*♀️🧟*♂️

— Undead Labs (@undeadlabs) May 30, 2018

That's what I was hearing, that there was a patch (and possibly a second that was submitted after release) going through the certification process and that MS was the one holding things up. Now it sounds like there never was a patch submitted and this is the first patch that they're working on.

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