A more casual/solo friendly game mode at the cost of bragging rights (or even full custom gameplay).

[summer jasper]

I hate multiplayer games and only play in singleplayer. I was brought in to this game because I heard others say it has some balancing to solo play, but the thing that interests me is that it has more than one game mode. Other Lethal Company clones just have an exclusive version that everyone plays in, but Forsaken Frontiers having more than one game mode could very well set it apart from the competition in having ways of customizing the experience. I believe that gameplay customization is paramount in the long term success of games.

So what I’m suggesting is to have a game mode that can act as something to be marketed to solo players. Similar to how Deep Rock Galactic is friendly to offline play by having a full mode where the player is accompanied by a companion (and difficulties). To better balance for a casual single player it could lessen debt interest and the cost of items to account for having less income (since only one player is looting). And/or get rid of the percentage selling so that solo players won’t get screwed over by a single map. This could make for a better experience for more casual play, as well as act as a practice mode for new players to get accustomed to the game. Which to others like myself that would be a fantastic selling point to set FF apart from the other Lethal Company clone competition, slept draw in new players who like dungeon crawling and horror but not the bs seen in all the Lethal Company games.

(continued in comments)

Of course it needs to be balanced by having set backs. The set backs being that this casual mode will not receive rank upgrades or achievements. So players will get no bragging rights and it will not affect the competitive nature of these types of games. Furthermore, it may be best to have a small watermark or text at the corner of the screen, so that screenshots can always be recognized as not being competitive. We wouldn’t want something to post a picture of high debt and claim that it was accomplished in regular play.

Really my dream would be to have a full customize-able/‘sandbox’ mode where you can adjust interest, prices, value, and set options such as percentage selling at the cost of no achievements/rank. So players can either be casual or create their own challenges by cranking up the difficulty (or YouTube videos). But for the sake of a small development team…I’m only going to discuss having a single more casual mode (unless a full ‘sandbox’ experience is possible).

Seriously, I think it would be a fantastic selling point on the store page that would set it apart from the competition. But I’m not part of the team (obviously) so I just want to know what the team members think about being more casual friendly.

I just want to know what the team members think. If they hate this (which is extremely likely) I’ll just go back to modding Lethal Company and playing Deep Rock Galactic.

[cosmic bridge]

Our next gamemade will be perfect for solo, I can't expand on it much other than that but I can say for certain it may scratch a few itches you are having for a more solo oriented gamemode. As for a sandbox style gamemode that could be interesting to explore in the future where you can control enemy types, amount of enemies, loot, map sizes etc. Honestly sounds really cool. Ill make a note about this and see if we have some time in the future to work on it because I truly think it would be cool.

I really appreciate you taking the time to suggest and give feedback as well!

Also I believe we are going to be making balances to general solo play

[summer jasper]

Sounds good. Thank you for being receptive. I know it’s unusual to go into an online co-op orientated game and wanting a solo balanced experience, but there aren’t really any procedural dungeon crawlers with Tarkov/extraction based gameplay. Only Lethal Company scratched that itch for me and I needed to heavily mod it to be less bs. It’ll be nice to have a game with that formula I’ve been searching for that’s not exclusively multiplayer focused.

[cosmic bridge]

Yeah we know a lot of people myself included that like playing more in the singleplayer realm so that's definitely somethign we have in the works but sometimes hard to get it all done, but like I said I think the next gamemode will be very good for players who enjoy playing alone

[summer jasper]

Oh yeah the balancing act of, well balance, across multiple play styles is a very daunting task. I’m just happy that would be something to look forward to on the horizon.

And of course, take your time. I’m down for the long haul if there’s something to look forward to on that long haul (which there is).