Dead State, ending fatigue and lackluster endings. [Spoiler]

Gethsemani_v1legacy

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So, I got started on Dead State earlier this year and got to about day 50 in game before losing interest and playing some other stuff. Got back last week and decided to finish my playthrough... Which turned out to be a lot harder than expected. When I left off I had completed all upgrades to the shelter, had equipped my main party with all Advanced Combat Vests/SWAT gear and top end firearms and unique melee weapons. On top of that I had 2,000-something food stocked (with a daily drain of less than 90) and antibiotics and fuel for more than two months. Put simply: The game no longer posed a challenge, I no longer needed to scavenge for supplies and there was no hint of an ending anywhere.

Looking around the internet I found out that the end game triggers on Day 86 and decided to make that my goal. Only, since I didn't need to scavenge for anything I mostly passed time doing it to avoid tedious conversations of people getting tired of morale drops (despite morale being over 3000, with a daily drain of 100 if I did nothing but just sleep through each day). Eventually, once day 76 came around I slept through the last ten days just to get through it. The end game triggers and I go to do the "last quest".

And what greets me? A few short conversations and a single still image that very, very briefly outlines the very bare bones of the ending. After having forced myself through the last 10 hours of the game, it almost felt like a slap in the face.

So, what's your experience? Any games which took way too long to finish or that provided deeply unsatisfactory endings. I am not talking about endings you disagreed with, but rather endings that just didn't live up to the effort you put into getting to them.
 

BloatedGuppy

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Feb 3, 2010
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Deliberately not reading your post because I might play through it one day (I kickstarted it). I played Dead State for about 5 hours or so maybe 6-7 months ago. Found it really scruffy/unfinished. I know it's had some huge patches/updates since then. Did you feel it was worth the playthrough? By the title I'm guessing the ending wasn't so hot, but the experience in its totality...good? Bad?
 

Gethsemani_v1legacy

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BloatedGuppy said:
Deliberately not reading your post because I might play through it one day (I kickstarted it). I played Dead State for about 5 hours or so maybe 6-7 months ago. Found it really scruffy/unfinished. I know it's had some huge patches/updates since then. Did you feel it was worth the playthrough? By the title I'm guessing the ending wasn't so hot, but the experience in its totality...good? Bad?
The first 15-20 hours? Awesome. Really captured the mood and theme of having to make hard decisions, of never having enough time to get every thing you need and having to outlast the end. But if you play the game moderately right (like I apparently did) you will reach a point where you have food stacked for a few weeks, enough gasoline to keep the generator running for a month and enough good equipment that the zombies goes from "constant danger that kills people" to "that menace that keeps forcing you into combat to cherry tap you". The fact that most end game fights are against humans and there are plenty of ways to incapacitate them (I nerve gased my way through the toughest location in the game, barely taking damage) also makes the end game less of a dangerous struggle against para-militaries but more into "have all the scientists make nerve gas and flashbangs!"

Don't get me wrong, I think it is a good game but the ending takes way too long to roll around and it overstays it welcome.