Ohbal

I think that cellars/underground are a confirmed yes from the devs so the map is at some point gonna be expanded downwards, but I'm not sure how hard would actual digging, i.e. changing the map itself, be to implement. Yes they are! [y] Sewers and basements http://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php/topic/192-commonly-suggested-suggestions-read-before-posting-unofficial/ I don't know about allowing the players to construct underground though... I think it would probably be really hard to balance.

I tend to roleplay a bit (I play mostly SP so it's just a bit)... and the first thing I thought when storing logs and planks was to protect them from the rain. I completely agree this would be a nice difficulty add-on!

But its not just slanted roofs! http://pzmap.crash-override.net/#0.4299476918171709,0.22058228600378044,474.7526275995392 That's where I have set my last safe house. The flat roof of that small lot does not exist in reality. Its a trap!

Well, you have to agree with me that it sounds a bit sad. A broken window a puzzle? A danger? What kind of world is PZ set in? I No I think you mis-understand. First, I did say 'Minor' puzzle.. I did NOT say danger Yes you did mate, yes you did Its fine though, I understand your point.

I'm completely against getting injured "randomly" by doing repetitive actions (grinding). That's like a pasive negative ability. Fun factor equals zero. I get it, the objective of the game is killing us, but I sincerely hope that the dev team can find ways of doing this in a way that doesn't feel cheap. I'm forced to chop hundreds of trees to get to a point of being able to craft a water holding recipient. I can't see a reason to make that process even more painful. More injuries and ways to get injured are surely needed. I don't mind the intruduction of minor wounds that act as a handicap, but not incapacitating you from actually playing. I have the feeling that, since Zombies are not dangerous enough at the moment, we are crunching our brains looking for ways to make our lives harder (but not the game more fun!!). If half of the effort that we are deviating to these ideas was put on boosting Zombie AI and group behaviour, I'm sure we wouldn't need to be thinking about trees crushing our foot once in a while!

Well, you have to agree with me that it sounds a bit sad. A broken window a puzzle? A danger? What kind of world is PZ set in? I'm all for making our in game time as hellish as possible... but I think making silly things become a danger is not the best way to achieve this. Bring in more challenges, more danger, more whatever, but please don't make me feel like taking glass out of a window is out of my reach, because at least for me is an inmersion breaker. I'm pretty sure TIS minds are able to pull more realistic hazards our way than a broken window

You see? Suggestions are not a waste of time

1. Agreed! 2. lol... I haven't ever eaten a worm in game, I would feel very miserable (and yes, I know they are protein sources and very appreciated by some cultures, but the game says -20 happiness for a reason )... if we could at least cook them... but I see your point . Another way of fighting this abuse would be making the "depress" moodle more dangerous (*). 3. This is a huge problem considering the amount of food stored in fridges. And it makes little sense. I completely agree with the addition of a "putrid" state. 4. Nothing lasts forever 5. Indeed. If the groups of 10s and 20s you easily find could react together, it would change the picture. NPCs will surely change the picture, nothing is more dangerous than men... but this is still a Zombie game, and it would be great to have some kind of meta events that would guarantee you would fear the undead. I know I've said it repeatedly, I will shut up now (or try) (*) A note on depression or bored moodles. I don't know if it was like this before, but now I feel like when my char is bored, he does things slower. With normal actions is barely noticeable, but when moving hundreds of bullets or picking planks I swear it felt slower... was like this all the time? Is this new? Am I nuts?

A deterrent to using a sheet rope? Well now I kind of don't want to advocate for the cleaning glass from window frames.Wait, you mean large picture windows? Guess you could just not use unopenable windows. I know its a joke, but let me take the opportunity to say that some kind of fix for the sheet rope should be implemented. Let it be that you cannot use it when over-loaded... Or give those sheet durability... or whatever. Safe-house balance would only be possible when we cannot build in the middle of the air, and when we get some kind of "con" from the sheet ropes. These two problems together are an invulnerability card.

Awesome!!! There is still hope!!!

You sure about this? In my main toon game, I keep on hearing choppers, gunshots, screams from my safe-house, but not a single group of zeds have appeared in months. This meta-events work in the beginning, before you clear out the area around your safehouse. Once its done, as far as I have experienced, nothing comes your way because there is nothing around you... this is what makes me think that the "meta zombies" are never ever pulled in the streamed part of the map.

100 meter is way to small. I usually have all terrain around my safe house empty of Z's. Also, question about the bolded part... is that even possible with the game engine? I'm trying to understand the conflict between streamed content and meta content.

I buy it! There needs to be some degree of additional challenge send your way after the point one feels safe. When I started playing PZ, I didn't know how the game worked, so I was making moves trying to anticipate all these possible scenarios. Having a second safe house is a must and I tend to keep on building additional hidding places with supplies worth a couple of weeks. I was fearing horde attack (they were mention in the forums, unfortunatelly from older versions and I never saw these attacks) and always had several alternative plans to guarantee my survival. Once you know how the game works, all this (which ultimately is where the sense of danger comes from) is gone. It would be good to make a poll about that. How much time does it take (in game) to get to the feeling of "mission accomplished"? Once we get some data, a system could be built with this in mind. The more you survive, the thougher it gets!

As a realist myself, I go even further! Why can't I put some gloves? Why can't I use some cloths to wrap my hand on it before removing the glasses? Getting injured becase you are in a hurry makes all the sense in the world. You are choosing the less of two evils. Getting injured because once that window is broken you have no way of removing the glass... not so much sense

Haven't played 7D2D yet (I really don't like how the game looks, and saw one gameplay in YT in which zombies, dogs and whatnot were attacking the player base, with the worst animations I've seen in years... so crappy). I agree that plain "spawn" of zombies in your area is not the answer to the problem, but something in between could work (horde approaching from the end of the streamed zone). Thats what I was talking about. With some nice probability algorytm which could be changed in options for increased or decreased difficulty, I would be totally excited. Hope the devs will make some statement to this! I honestly can't see another way to solve the puzzle... but I'm no dev! We'll find out soon enough I guess

Glad I'm not alone! On the "scripted attacks", I'd like them to happen, honestly. I wouldn't like them to be "periodical" in the sense of "predictable"... but you should have your base tested once in a while. That's the feeling I'm talking about. Hordes should be way more common. If you are awake and manage to turn off lights or any other activity that could attrack them to you, you may dodge the danger, but if you fail, things get nasty. The loot abundance could be one of the problems, but as you said, as long as there is "foraging" you won't starve. Right now a base as you say is something you build for the fun of it. I've been safer while using a house each night than on my own safehouse where I broke two legs Injuries (if designed to act as a handicap and not as a fun-killer - fractures, I'm looking at you) could play a nice part on this, although "passive" injuries could feel as a punishment for the player... grinding carpentry is enough painful right now to add it a chance of getting injured and being forced to "stay indoors" for an in game week. The same with cooking after the power is out; its demanding enough right now, to add it chances of getting injured... However, if some way to avoid injuries is added (Worker / Cooking Gloves!!) this would fit nicely! That's where I would go. Cooking, doing carpentry, cutting trees... every activity involving sound or smell could start attracting the horde. But... why do I mention scripted then on my first post? Well, maybe there is something I didn't understand right, but as far as I know, the game doesn't "manage" the world map entirely, it only loads the area you are in. Anything outside that area is not there... meaning it cannot go in your direction, or do anything at all. How could we attract what is not there? Scripting it is the only answer I can end with.

Hello again! After a long PZ weekend, I'm emptying my brain of some feedback. I've been waiting for two months in order to have a look at all the changes implemented in game in a serious game, and finally last Friday I decided to give it ago. I made a sandbox game tweaked to feel fast (2x experience) and accelerated erosion as I didn't want to spend too much time grinding skills. The game feels great, with the Erosion add-on the game world packs a punch in terms of inmersion. I like how the Zs create small hordes now, and how the non visited areas get re-populated with more and more undead. But the point of this topic is to basically share my impression, that the game is not trying to kill me yet. I have practically the same feeling as in my previous saved game. Yeah, I can kill less Z's per hour now (before it was ridiculous). Now it basically takes time, but not so much to make it boring. Once you adapt your play-style to the new Rythm, things go alright. I wanted to check how the fire arms actually work after the re-vamp and grabbed my old toon who has almost maxed out aiming, and I didn't feel any difference (do I need to start over to see these changes?). I was 1-shoot killing with the pistol, and killing-spread with the shotgun. The biggest danger at the moment comes from falls (but I'm dealing with this sepparately) and fractures. Basically what I want to say is that the game is not trying to kill us yet. Some parameters were changed forcing players to adapt but once this adaptation is made the game feels the same way (or almost the same way) as before. I'm almost convinced at this point that the game won't get close to getting me killed until the NPCs are added. Until the Z's get somehow scripted to find your base and attack it periodically, its really easy (10-15 in game days) to get to a point of feeling too safe. What are your thoughts on this?

And what about adding a pair of gloves into the world? Its not an uncommon object, and it could help both with the broken windows, or to avoid burning yourself while cooking, and I'm pretty sure we could find more uses for them. This reminds me the umbrella thingy... such a common object (not to mention hoods, lol) and yet we suffer the rain upon our heads day after day. Or the warmer clothes to avoid freezing during the winter... I'm all for more difficulty, but we could as well build some coherence with the world we actually live in.

I'm literally following this thread, so its not that I dislike any update made on it, but I think something could be done to avoid the need for bumping. I realize that the suggestion I'm going to make could take visibility out of it as the general discussion is probably the most visited subforum of PZ... but couldn't we move this thread to "PZ community and Creativity" and stick it? Just two cents I had on my pocket

Awesome guide! Just wanted to step in and thank you for it, Moose65

I never said this cons should only be added to indoor fires . I'm just saying that everything you do in a game should have "pros" and "cons"... otherwise those actions will be exploited by most players. The player should be forced to take decissions based on the situation, taking into account that those said actions may have consequences. I admit it has been a long time since I made my last [real] campfire (not counting BBQs ), but I remember that depending on the type of wood and state (humid or dry) the smoke colour and density varies greatly. This is just a guess based on old memories, but under normal conditions a small campfire doesn't throw a lot of smoke. The village were my parents live is a rather small place with only a few houses, all buildings made with stone. In winter, the white smoke comming out of all chimneys draws quite a beautiful picture... but under PZ scenario it would be like having a huge "here I am" sign above your safe-house. In any case, said system would be pretty hard to implement right. It should take into account LoS... and I think it has been made clear enough that the game doesn't stream enough map to make this calculations something possible, so I'm afraid I'm just throwing all this theories for the sake of discussion

Welcome! Pretty cool suggestions you are making mate, although some of them would require more than a small revamp from the existing features 1, 2 & 3. I think there are many things that could be done on the cloth department. If we ever get wild animals, I hope there is a way to use craft some cloth out of them. I still think feels not having a jacket or some warmer clothes than a sweter is a bit dumb to be honest. Hopefully it'll get adressed soon. 4. I agree, currently those are lacking negative effects on the gameplay. What I would like to see though is a more realistic system being build for this. If the engine could identify certain scenarios (several days raining, water reserves going low, no food on the safe house, illness, wounds...) it would be awesome. 5. Pretty please! 6. I think I could live without this one, althoug the greenhouse idea is great. I'd love to be able to build these kind of things. 7. Like it as well... and this one could be reasonably cheap to implement.

Well, of course its just my opinion, but its nice to have a balance in most gameplay elements. If you are getting only goodies from an action, that action will spread and become the standard. Its just a matter of exploitable mechanics. Most of the things you do in life have pros and cons, so its my opinion that a survival game should mimic this scenario. I also think that the smoke from the campfires should be visible as well. Hell, I've been making my fires behind walls just because I thought the light could attract more Zeds (I have a powerful imagination, lol). Besides, the smoke comming out from these kind of fireplace is more visible than the one from a campfire (unless you are doing a mess with your fire!). The smoke comes out white and dense from the chimneys, right?

Hi, I'd like to be able to put my soups on a water bottle or other small containers. Walking around carrying the whole bowl seems a bit silly.

I agree! It would be quite a good addition for the Winter survival, and also gives ways to cook safely than with campfires. One of the things I liked the most about This War of Mine was the heating mechanic for the winter... although wood is a limited resource in TWoM and in PZ its pretty much endless (specially since Erosion! ) If we had to add a "con" to this: visible smoke comming out the chimney, which could attrack both Zombies and [Future] NPCs