MrBlackAttack

I like the two button ideas for combat.
 
LMB: Normal melee swing.
RMB: Guards, pushes when released.

I don't know how zombies work in this game - it may well be that snapping the neck, crushing the heart, collapsing the lungs, or other well-known fatal wounds would kill just as easily. If it has to be the head, that would explain why the current unarmed combat technique is "knock it down and stomp".

Would breaking the neck of a zombie kill it or even paralyze it? I would guess that based on normal lore, you would end up with a chomping head that can't move its body? Does the zombie still need its nervous system to move? I think the one thing we can all agree on is that you need to destroy the brain to definitely kill a zombie. However, a chomping head attached to a immobile body would be an easy zombie to finish off.

I wouldn't mind holding LCTRL just to glance around at my surroundings. I guess I'm just used to that pinky action though.

What I, personally, would like to see with the combat mechanics:
 
1. Timed blocks and timed attacks.
 
2. More combat animations.
 
3. Zombie hordes being more threatening.
 
4. Firearm accuracy mattering more.

Still I have to agree with deprav, that to generate enough force from a crouch attack (even to shatter a knee) would require massive arm strength, which most normal people just don't have. However, if there were an unarmed skill maybe allowing for low kicks, trips and the like, this would be completely possible.

I actually agree with most of the points that deprav made.
 
The idea of the zombies pulling you in rather that pushing at you makes a lot of sense. Even better would be if you had they could latch on to you, requiring either a guard attempt (RMB) to push them off, or an attack attempt (LMB) to try to kill them in a grapple situation. Possibly adding more animations such as a neck snapping or stabbing through the eye socket or under the jaw.
 
Even further into detail sneaking should require a crouch animation, only usable by hitting LCTRL and making you move slower. You should be able to combine this with the LMB to aim at the legs giving a higher chance to knock down and possibly cripple the zombies. You should also recieve a higher accuracy when crouching and using ranged weapons.
 
Another thing that would be really amazing to see would be a running attack (which would be completely possible with depravs combat suggestions). You would charge up your attack while sprinting severely lowering your accuracy but heavily increasing your damage and knockback on melee weapons. Maybe even enabling some different kill animations such as decapitating with blades or heads bursting with blunt weapons.

What I, personally, would like to see with the combat mechanics:
 
1. Timed blocks and timed attacks.
 
2. More combat animations.
 
3. Zombie hordes being more threatening.
 
4. Firearm accuracy mattering more.

Oh heck yes.
 
Let me see if I'm understanding you correctly: instead of automated combat within hand-to-hand range, zombies would have attack animations that the player could identify and interrupt with a block/shove. A stronger shove would still be better (more knockback, longer delay before another attack) but a well-timed shove would also be better, because it would catch the zombie off-balance. Instead of needing enough brute force to push three zombies away at once, a skilled survivor could hold them off with quick parries. In fact, if you were good enough at the game, you wouldn't need a weapon to take on a single zombie: the timing would be a lot tighter, but you could parry a zombie's initial charge, knock it down when it tried to attack again, and literally curb-stomp it to death.
 
I can think of two extensions to that as well:
If you are not in combat stance, interacting with a zombie (E or left-click) should a fast block/shove. This makes fleeing easier and evading ambushes possible. You can block while moving to do a running check. That would be the technique for slipping past a zombie guarding a door, per my hypothetical. This is sounding like a pretty solid setup for a two-button brawler combat interface. That's a very good thing.

I prefer slow zombies too, but ingame they are nothing more than an inconvenience. Want to loot that zombie-filled house ? Just lure them out, kite-circle them picking off one at a time. No matter how many, it just takes longer the more there are. It just feels wrong.
 
There are other games out there that opted for the "omniscient" zombie, that will always find you no matter where you hide ("7 days to die" comes to mind), and it just feels wrong too.
 
Revamping exhaustion might be a good way to make players think twice before engaging huge hordes of zombies... Or maybe zombie resistance ? Something like zombies having huge health pool, but vulnerable when downed, thus making it harder to finish them off the ground when there are other zombies around advancing towards you. Not talking about a special "execute move" here, just plain old "hit them on the ground" animation currently in use. Would make horde-farming dangerous, while small groups (1 to 3-4) would still be manageable.

I'm up for this idea as long as these things are considered in :
 
- While you're in "defense" mode with holding down the right mouse button, a single zombie would actually "continue" walking towards you and push you backwards (not stopping to play "biting" animation), while having  a low chance of scratching you, and a minimal chance of taking a bite. It all could crash down to zero if you are being grabbed by more than 1, of course, but holding 1, maximum 2 zombie mouths away shouldn't be a big deal, just grab em by their necks, or hold your wide handle of a weapon by their throats and push back.
 
- While in "defense" mode, you can ALSO press LMB to deal a slight damage to the zombie. It will be a much smaller (about 1/6th of it) damage rate than a weapon normally has, and you are probably going to be better off just pushing a zombie away, but sometimes there's moments where you CAN'T "just push them away", and you NEED that zombie who is lunging at you to be KILLED for your maneuver to succeed.  (More on this below)
 
- Weapons should completely be rid of the ability of "pushing" enemies away, making it more about "firing couple of careful shots at those who get too close and continue fleeing", than "walk back continuously while shooting, reload, push zombies back, repeat until run outta ammo/zombies to kill". Once you're stuck in the "defense" mode with your weapon, while a zombie is pushing you back, you'll need to press "LMB" to shoot a zombie's head with a high critical chance, or continue pressing LMB to "hit" it with a handle, in case you ran out of ammo. That way you can put it down, although it'll greatly damage your weapon's durability, forcing you to count your rounds carefully and make sure not to get caught off guard. Releasing RMB while in defense mode will immediately skip to zombie's "biting" animation, in that moment you'll also be "pulled in" or "held from moving" like you normally are during those encounters. The problem with this is that you'd have too small of a time to get away without getting ANY damage.
 
- Small tweaks regarding the pushing. If you push a zombie into a zombie, both zombies have their chance of: 1) falling down 2) getting shoved back 3) getting slowed down. It all depends on the momentum of an impact of that particular zombie. That way - if you forcefully pushed a zombie back (normally it would fall down if nobody was behind), it will send the second zombie behind him stumbling back and falling (if nobody is there), or pushing a third zombie away stumbling. A third zombie will have an even smaller momentum, so the only thing he could do with the fourth zombie is slightly slow him down. (More on this "momentum" idea below)
 
- Each zombie has momentum behind them, depending on their walking speed. A standing zombie has minimal momentum (zero), so if you push another zombie into it, they are both likely to fall. However, a zombie walking towards you has a bigger momentum because it's moving forward, so pushing a zombie into him will have very mixed, very different type of results with each try. If a zombie's momentum is greater than the force of opposite momentum, then the zombie that was originally shoved away will produce zero results on impact, and you'll likely end up with two zombies chasing you simultaneously. However, if a zombie's momentum is lower than the momentum of  the opposing, shoved zombie, then the chance of falling/slowing down/getting pushed away are calculated on the spot.
 
tl;dr - ADD PHYSICS BEHIND "DEFENSE" MECHANIC OF THIS SUGGESTION!!

What if you didn't have to hold the RMB, instead use timed blocks to keep zeds at bay? At a certain point there would be just too many that blocking would become useless and you'd be overwhelmed.

I'd rather not make the player hold down RMB to defend - if you're in combat stance at all, you're either on the defensive or on the offensive - but the point about passivity is a good one. Actually, it might make sense to say that you are only dodging if you are moving - if (for example) you're trying to stop a zombie from getting through a doorway while your friend grabs emergency supplies, dodging is not exactly an option, but if you're trying to get past that zombie to run away, you might be able to evade its initial swipe and get through before it can swipe again.

Reading my suggestion again, I think we might be closer in opinion than I thought. I can't see the justification for a guaranteed instant scratch unless your character is caught completely off guard - after all, if we're talking about the classic Romero-style zombie, their hand-to-hand combat skills are going to be roughly equivalent to a toddler's - but a zombie that does grab you is major trouble. In my mind, the zombie threat scale looks something like this:
Oblivious: no threat - can sneak past or avoid entirely. Following: potential threat - can be evaded or attacked with a ranged weapon. Approaching: imminent threat - either flee now, shoot now, or start swinging with a reach weapon (baseball bat, golf club, &c.). Attacking: actual threat - needs to be shoved away or killed immediately. Grappling: physically holding on, pulling, tearing, and biting - needs to be pulled off, and it may already be too late. What I was getting at with the "passive dodge" proposal is that a zombie doesn't skip straight from 3 to 5 the moment it gets within arm's reach. In ideal circumstances - say, a single zombie plainly visible in front of your character, no distractions - it would not take too much luck to avoid being bitten or grabbed for ten seconds at two feet away even without training. (Scratches ... well, you can probably avoid that for a second or two. Probably.) If a zombie has started a grapple, a scratch is basically guaranteed whatever you do and a bite is likely every second it can hold on ... but an immediate grapple is only likely if you didn't know the zombie was there before it reached you (and even then you might get away with just a scratch).

Still I have to agree with deprav, that to generate enough force from a crouch attack (even to shatter a knee) would require massive arm strength, which most normal people just don't have. However, if there were an unarmed skill maybe allowing for low kicks, trips and the like, this would be completely possible.

As a gun enthusiast and full supporter of game realism, the addition of weapon optics to Project Zomboid was a great start. Having scopes with zoom capabilities for long range targets and red dot sight for close range. But I know from experience that there is a easy tweak that would make using an optic far more realistic.
 
If you’ve ever shot a gun with a zoom optic, then you know that your vision is narrowed on the spot that you’re aiming at. The more powerful the zoom or the closer your point of aim is, the more narrow your field of view becomes. In addition, when using a zoom scope, the only eye that you keep open is looking down the sight, making your peripheral vision almost negligible.
 
When it comes to red dots, you keep both eyes open when aiming. This allows your peripherals to be utilized far more reliable and effectively. But this also means you won’t have any magnification on our optic, thus decreasing the red dot’s effectiveness at longer range.
 
As I said, I love realistic games. The more minute a detail seems, the cooler I think it is. So I think it would be a great idea for vision to be narrowed when aiming. With what little coding “experience” I have, it would seem to me that it wouldn’t take a great deal of effort to use the lighting system that is already in place to narrow a player’s vision in various ways when aiming at different ranges with different optics.
Personally, I think it would be a much needed addition to the firearm system (as much as I love this game, I think it’s fair to say that the firearm mechanics are still a work in progress). From what I’ve seen, this game has always been all about realism. I think adding that little twist of only being able to see where you’re aiming would put a new and more realistic spin on this game.

Knees are actually pretty fragile things. You could probably knock down zombies by shattering their patellas and turning them into crawlers.
 
...

Here's a TL;DR summary of your post if you want to copy-paste, deprav:
 

Two ways to make combat more realistic and deadly:

As of Build 29, zombies are too weak - if you're completely idle at the controls while a zombie flails at your character, your character should be scratched or bit immediately, not 10 seconds later. The game should have two-button combat instead of one-button combat. Have combat stance on a toggle, then have separate attack/swing and defense/shove buttons. Force the player to be aware how close the zombies are getting instead of just spamming the LMB.   As for my reaction:
From the sound of it, zombies should be more dangerous than they are, but people do a lot of stuff reflexively to protect themselves - dodging, jerking out of reach, &c. - and that should probably be automatic without player intervention. Instead of instant-scratch, I would say an untrained person should be able to dodge one ordinary zombie for at least 10 seconds, sometimes dodge two ordinary zombies for 5 seconds, and be pretty much screwed if three or more get in arms-reach ... and however many there are, it should be exhausting rather than body-damaging. And, of course, if you're trying to do something else while dodging (e.g. get a non-broken baseball bat out of your bag), it should be much worse. Loving the proposed two-button combat system. In keeping with my thoughts about dodging, above, I think LMB=wind-up-and-swing, RMB=push-and-shove is a good way to conceptualize it for close combat, and LMB=take-aim-and-fire, RMB=swing-or-shove would work for ranged weapons. Other thoughts:If RMB actions don't impair dodging much and LMB actions tank it massively, that would create your don't-swing-wildly penalty very naturally. Per the above, the kitchen knife one-hit-kill attack should be LMB, not RMB, even though it is a point-blank-range attack. I would like outlines on the ground to show you the rough range of attacks with your current weapon when in combat mode - it's a lot harder to see how far away a zombie is in-game than it would be in real life. By the way, I think they should probably introduce armor into the game - I'm sure that there are motorcyclists in Kentucky, but even if there weren't, there would be leather jackets and gloves around. They wouldn't be 100% protection, obviously, but there would be a chance of a scratch or bite turning into a reduction of Condition on the armor instead.

Thanks !
The "stabbing through jaw" animation is already a thing with knives ! (and maybe screwdrivers, not sure) But the neck snapping sounds kinda overpowered, you could pretty much wander bare-handed and kill everything ;o
I'm pretty sure the crouching animation for sneaking is already planned, but I don't think the "attack the legs when crouching" mechanics will be a thing ! Plus from a technical combat pov, as zombies don't feel pain, knocking them down would have to be done by pure strenght, snapping their legs, and it's pretty hard to generate such strenght while in a crouching pose. Would be easier to do with a golf club in standing position. But that's the kind of mechanics I'm talking about when I say "the game is not built to have a realistic combat simulation."
I like the running attack idea tho !
 
 
Yeah I'm aware they don't "push" as it's not an intendent action but a basic way to simulate the collision, but (and correct me if I'm wrong, I'm about to talk about something I've no clue about) the fact that object occupying this X space gets pushed away must be relying on a line of code, somewhere, saying that object and this zombie can't be on the same spot.
What if that line of code is changed so that object and this zombie CAN be on the same spot, but suffers an important movement reduction speed (just like when you walk in dense forest) to the point it would almost stop both your character and the zombies.
Imo, that would give a more "realistic" collision simulation, and be much more punitive if you run into zeds, since it would give them the opportunity to grab you more easily. In its actual state, if you run straight into a zed the "repulsion" will just shift your course on the side and won't slow you down at all.
(I have to go I'm in a hurry, I think I forgot to say something!)

Shooting out the lock with a shotgun should also be doable by average joe I guess.

My lockpicking mod allows you to break open a door with a crowbar.

While there is a mod, I think we can all agree the Average Joe/Jane has no idea how to pick a lock.  I think a normal person could put a crowbar into a door and get it open.

Thanks, Viceroy! The basic concept - a cast-iron pot designed to be put over coals with more coals placed on top - is probably widespread, but it's a bit much to ask humanity to agree on a name for ... well, anything.
 
 
You know what? I think my present thinking accomodates that. I would make a campfire a container which has its own temperature. Here's how I imagine it would go.
 
You just finished reading the "Firemaking for Beginners" skill book. It's time to make the book do double-duty by using it for kindling. You get some logs, drag one over to where you want the fire to be, and use the Build menu to combine the skill book, the log, and a pack of matches to make a Campfire.
 
When you click on the fire to check it in the Inventory window, you see the Campfire symbol in the container list with a black background, the Skill Book rapidly heating to bright red as the "Combusting" bar slowly fills, and the Log still with a black background. Soon, however, you see the background of the Campfire symbol turning red, and after that you see the background of the Log start changing color. After a few in-game minutes, the Log gets warm enough for the "Igniting" bar to appear and start filling, but you notice the "Combusting" bar on the Skill Book is almost full. To make sure that it burns long enough to light, you put one of your three surplus "Advanced Fishing" skill books in the Campfire; after a few seconds, the new book has heated to red, ignites, and shows its own "Combusting" bar. Not long after that, the "Igniting" bar fills on the Log and is replaced by a "Burning" bar; the temperature of the Campfire rises visibly and an "Unpleasantly Hot" moodle appears. You quickly doff your sweater, open a Can of Soup to make a Pot of Soup, and put it in the Campfire.
 
As you wait for the Pot of Soup to finish cooking, the "Burning" bar of the Log fills, and the Log item disappears and is replaced with a Bed of Coals item with a "Combusting" bar. The Campfire temperature drops back down, and you find yourself putting the sweater back on before the Pot of Soup finishes cooking. After you take the Pot of Soup off the fire, you add two more Logs to the fire, step back to a more comfortable distance, make yourself a Bowl of Soup, and start eating.
 
What I see happening internally is the following.
Each item (and the fire) has a thermal inertia coefficient based on real-world weight and specific heat capacity that says how quickly the item changes temperature. For the STEM people in the audience: I think the most convenient units on this would actually be time-1 - the highest inertia objects (Logs, Pots of Water, Planks) would have the smallest number, the lowest inertia objects (anything weighing 0.1 or less, Empty Mugs) the highest number. At every point in time, each item (and the fire) has a target temperature and an actual temperature. The target temperature will be either be based on its environment (if it is not on fire) or be its burning temperature (if it is). Each tick, all the objects in the container (starting with the highest thermal inertia) would check its target temperature and actual temperature, and move the actual a fraction of the remaining distance towards the target based on its thermal inertia coefficient. (This is why I suggested time-1 - so that this fraction is just the number stored in the program.) Each item on fire also has a radiation temperature. This represents how much extra heat they give to their surroundings (e.g. players standing next to the fire) from their glow. If fires give off light, you can adjust the radiation heat felt by players based on distance using the lighting engine in the graphics card. For the campfire, the target temperature is based on a weighted average of the ambient temperature the average item temperature, plus a fraction of the total radiation temperature - that is, the sum of the radiation temperatures of everything in the fire. (Two ways that the Firemaking skill might make things easier for you: reduce the effect of ambient temperature, increase the effect of radiation temperature. This represents building your fire in a more efficient way that focuses the heat where you want it.) For items not on fire, the target temperature is the campfire temperature plus a fraction of the total radiation temperature. Note: this is the temperature shown in the Inventory window, not the true campfire temperature - hence the sudden drop when the Burning Log turned into Burning Coals. Each item affected by heat would have a temperature threshold at which the bar for being hot ("Cooking", "Burning", "Combusting", and "Igniting" are the ones I've mentioned) would start filling. When that bar fills, the item either turns into a fired version of the item with a new bar (e.g. a Wet Towel would turn into a Dry Towel and start charring) or vanishes into ashes. Ignitable items - which would include, say, Burned Bacon - would have a special Igniting bar that resets if it cools down below the igniting temperature; other bars would remain at whatever point they reached. Tinder materials would have extremely short Igniting bars, but for everything else it would vary - longer for Logs than for Planks or Twigs. Stable materials - e.g. empty cookware, golf clubs, and skeletons - would have no bar. As I implied above, a Burning Corpse would turn into Bones, not simply ashes. You can't burn bones on a campfire (although they might have agricultural value when smashed). Also, the Dessicating bar for a corpse would take a really log time to fill. I have a bunch of other ideas, but that's already enough for a post. Let me know if it is confusing how confusing it is.
 
Edit: I would also like to apologize for not hiding the game mechanics under some kind of tag - I don't know which one to use.

Earlier today I realized that I had a bunch of PZ ideas, and after throwing out the ones that are redundant with everyone else's suggestions I realized there was still a big one left: more sophisticated campfire mechanics, especially for cooking.
 
 
 
As natural as it is to run appliances via on-off switch, I would love to have a separate "Fuel" window for charcoal grills, wood stoves, and campfires for one simple reason: different materials burn differently. Drawing from my old BSA experience, I'd suggest having a simple binary split between tinder and fuel. Tinder would include books, magazines, newspapers, tissues, sturdy sticks, and twigs (the last of these you can forage from the woods), be ignited by anything - matches, lighter, or bow-drill fire starter - burn for not-very-long, and leave only ashes. Fuel would include logs and planks, be ignited by the tinder, burn for a long time, and produce coals ... which is key, because (a) you can bank the fire, which will let you start it many hours later with nothing but tinder and fuel, and (b) coals are what you use to cook on.
 
On which note: it always felt weird to me that there was no difference between stovetop, oven, and campfire for cooking purposes. A microwave egg is as different from a fried egg as a fried egg is from a boiled egg. My "make everyone carry around potholders" idea is probably ridiculous, but a simple split between frying and baking seems natural: ovens and microwaves do baking, and stoves, grills, and campfires do frying ... with one exception.
 
The exception - and I love it, it just feels so Project Zomboid - is the cooking implement that Americans call a "Dutch Oven", other Anglophones call a "Casserole Dish", and French call a "Cocotte": a nine-kilogram (twenty-pound) cast-iron pot that has legs so it can sit above coals and a lid with a lip so you can pile coals on top. It is exactly the kind of absurd thing that I'd love to see more of: terrible in the early game (all it is good for is baking or carrying water, and it's way heavier than a baking pan and a cooking pot combined), awesome in the late game (oh, the power went out three years ago? That's a shame. Here, have some berry cobbler).
 
And, of course, dev's choice whether to let people use the lid separate from the pot as a frying pan.
 
So, yeah, that's the best suggestion I've got. Hope it's amusing.