Ohbal

Yep, we keep knocking on that door We need zombies to start attracting each others by the noise they make. Right now is only the few arround that notice you, it would be awesome if that noise or call that is currently implemented get boosted. Zombies tend to group, and they group because they see or hear something. The one who sees you, makes some noise by moving to you, and nearby zombies start to react to that, creating a cascade effect. This would be awesome imo!

And why not reducing (as well) the amount of rainy days? On my current game (it may be a coincidence since I see people mentioning too often the baby-siting thingy on the farming topic) I just have to plant the seed and water it during the first day. After that, if I leave for a couple of days, rain will take care of my potatos / tomatoes (yeah I only grow the easy stuff ) good enough. I'm at the end of December at the moment but rains come every single day. Reducing the amount of water that a rain barrel gives you will only lead to constructing more barrels.... which also makes sense. I think it would be a good idea to implement deseases in the stored water as has been suggested by Packbat a few posts back. And a final thought: would it be possible to make the amount of water falling from the rain different depending on the zone? Rainy in WP and sunny in Muldraugh for example (actually I'm not sure this is not already the case, never tested it to that extent)

Clearly we need more aggresive zombies

This is what really needs to be changed. Zombies should be able to break down walls. Perhaps walls should only succumb when multiple zombies are attacking it. This way, when a horde comes a-knockin, they will provide a real, actual challenge. I absolutely agree! I would add to that, the ability for the zombies to pull from the sheet ropes and remove them. You may be safe from their grasp on your fortress, but unless you stockpile sheets like a mad-man, you'll have to "fly down" eventually

I just noticed that we are focusing this thread on Farming... when we should be looking for ways to die, don't we?

But that's the point, even veterans should die at some point, we're not doing crazy stuffs to stay alive ! Surviving for a long time should come under an extreme caution, extreme preparation, a well organized group... pushing the gameplay and offered possibilities to their limits ! Right now we can survive forever, by ourself, without much effort but basic precautions. We are all going to die... eventually I don't know about you, but I'm doing "crazy" stuff to stay alive. Looking around each and every corner, carefully getting in any building, looking through the windows, trying to stealthy clean up the path and making sure I have an escape route everytime. I look like a paranoid! I mean, if you compare my way of playing now with how I played four months ago when I got the game... it’s absolutely different. However, even with all the precautions I take, every now and then I enter a house and inside I get surprised by a few zeds I didn't see, and if I don't react quickly things would get nasty. Or I don't plan properly a long trip and I end up trying to find a place while I keep attracting tons of Zeds due to running. There are many things that can go wrong. In fact, if not for the "thick skin" trait, I would be dead for sure. A lot of scratches have gone to "minor damage" and thus no risk of infection... but without this trait (which may need nerfing btw) my survival days would have ended for sure. But this is all Off Topic... sorry for kidnaping the thread.

Yep, right now the system gives you a lot of food in little time, but also the food you get rottens too fast. I'm wasting half of my stuff most of the time (even if I cook it, it gets rotten within a week or so).

There is a lot of people complaining about the clic-madness related to Farming as is it right now. I think there could be some stuff added, like the so many times suggested compost box, which you could use on your crops to produce bigger harvests. However, complicating Farming and making it a full-mini-game on it self wouldn't cut it IMHO. I think we just need to adjust the time it takes for the plants to grow... and making it so depending on the month you are currently on your harvest will be more or less abundant. In any case, just increasing the time it takes may prove insufficient as well. I could just plant a few tiles each week to make sure every week I would have fresh food. It would be just a matter of timing different tiles to get a constant fresh production. Making it impossible to grow in the winters would be something. You introduce the need to stockpile.... but I think that we need to find other reasons for the player to abandon their safe houses. I think we will always be able to exploit farming, one way or the other. Cheers!

Agreed. In the current build, proper zombies are only dangerous when badly outnumbered and cornered, which pretty much never happens if you are just a bit careful. i don't know how to make proper zombies more of a threat, but your suggestion would be a good start. In the meantime, for increased challenge, I play with Sprinters. As much as I do not like sprinting zombies, it indeed makes them dangerous : Unseen zombie jumping on you ? Almost garanteed scratch/bite. 1v1 ? Easy, just try not to f*ck up your timing. 1v2 ? Hard but manageable. Low chances to walk out untouched. 1v3+ ? Run like a motherlover (if you can... losing them can be quite tricky). No doubt, sprinters are another division of Zombi-Hazard. The thing is, PZ is supposed to have the classic zombi type. In this scenario, most of the long-term survivors should be fine unless they stop being careful. I think that's the core of the Zombie Apocalypse. The question is, can you be careful all the time? In this game, one f'up and you are screwed. If you are able to play 30 hours without making a mistake, it means that you are paying a lot of attention on your playthroughs. Most of the veterans claiming that the game got easy are just very skilled survivors doing the right thing to keep alive. I'm not saying we don't need a combat revamp or some adjustments into the difficulty. They would be absolutely welcome Just wanted to point out that it could be that there are probably a lot of veterans playing this game and basically doing things the way they are supposed to be done... and thus, surviving!

This is something related to the discussion about OFTLGBKYBYGT (geez what an abbreviation!). I kind of disagree with this... As far as the classic zombie lore goes, zombies are both easy to dodge and easy to out run. The Zombie menace comes from two things: 1. Large numbers 2. Human Error (over confidence) 3. Element of Surprise On an open road with good visibility, a skilled survivor shouldn't have any problems if all he wants is to keep moving. The survival problems comes once you stop, and you have a massive horde following you. Romero's movies, Resident Evil, WWZ, TWD, Dead Rising... and most of the iterations with zombies that do not imply runners are working by these rules. The characters of those movies / games do not face particular troubles on the Zombie-Dodging art. Its one of the things that makes you feel like you are in control, that you are better than those stupid and slow non-dead... and is precisely that sense of over-confidence which gets most of the people killed on those movies / books / games.

I honestly think is mostly a matter of gameplay choices. Since the game mechanics allow the advanced player to just sit and see the crops growing, and the game objective is to survive as much as you can, the farming feature gets "exploited". Its not that the game is easy. Everytime I get out of my safe house to make some runs I have incredibly intense moments. Going from Muldraugh to WP is always a challenge... Yesterday I tried build 29 for the first time. I have most of Muldraugh completely looted, and two safe houses in place. The main road is still packed with tons of zombies but the town itself is mostly empty. I decided to make a run to West Point an it was amazing. The classic "where the hell do I sleep now..." or "damn, its too frigging late, and I can't see anything three meters away". The game feels great as it is right now, I would only tweak some aspects to make it go back to the nightmare experience. As "Explorator" pointed out, the moment all the negative effects from boredom, exhaustion or depression get reviewed and in place, things will get nastier. There could be also de-buffs for sitting on the same place for too long (aka, safe house-farming). The character could get increasingly depressed or bored as the days go by. If the game somehow forces you to take the road, we are back again on the right track. Some of my runs would have ended abruptly if the "exhaustion" feature actually made my character move very slow, or even pass out. Add to this a better grip for Zombies (they are asking for it!) and I think only minor tweaks will be necessary.

Hey all, Awesome thread, I've seen really great suggestions while reading it. While I'm still trying to put together my own stand on this matter, I think it would be wise to have the below two quotes in mind before jumping into conclussions: With this clear, here are my favourites suggestions so far: And finally, I think Akiruu wrote an excellent post here: With only half of these in place, PZ would be a terrible place to be

Oops, sorry! I confess I've read the suggestion thread, plus several dozens of other on this forums, but my memory has huge leaks so I guess I didn't see that one. PS: no need to give me special treatment. I'd say Igor's speaks by himself well enough

Hey all, Wouldn't it be a good way to use the rotten food to be able to craft a compost box? http://www.robertkarl.org/woodworkingblog/2009/04/compost-bin-design-session.html A quick thought that came to my mind the other day, I've been seeing my piles of garbage growing for months

Alrighty, makes sense Thanks for the answers guys!

Hello! I was wondering the other day... the town has been without power for three months, but still I'm getting house alarms every now and then. How is this possible? Are they running on alternative power? I'm a complete ignorant about these things and I'm not claiming it should be changed, just want to know if this makes sense. Cheers!