NaomiColt

Sigh. I'll try to keep to the point instead of using an angry, dismissive tone. Walking backwards with a spear and fighting a human oponent might be a bit complicated, because he'll dodge, block and if he has a long reach weapon as well, you have to worry about counterattacks. A zombie simply walks forward - he never protects vital parts, usually has one or two arms outstretched (leaving weak points open), and some of them even let their heads lean forward in front of their bodies. A zombie is easily baited, feinted and deceived. It just follows two basic instincts: kill and eat. It doesn't have a clue if that pointy stick aimed at its head is going to kill it. Such a target is laughably easy to hit while moving. I mean it - grab a broom, walk backwards, and tell me you can't place strong accurate thrusts in front of you. What you have to do is worry about your footing (you may trip if it's uneven terrain and you're not paying attention) and zombies sneaking at your back. Stopping after each swing is not realistic and very tedious. I'm sure that there is a better path than implementing artificial, unrealistic difficulty by twisting reality just because players are being efficient. Spears are just THAT good in real life. Technical issues are another matter - but neither me nor any of my friends saw anything wrong in that regard lately (floating legs?). What we did feel as soon as we booted the game today was our characters being slow, stiff and clunky. Also, this feature (fix?) was uploaded today. I suppose the criticism and feedback (even positive ones) will be coming from now on.

(Please take this post light-heartedly. Still serious, though.) I know, I know, we don't have bows and crossbows yet! But according to the good suggestions thread, we're supposed to get them at one point. Frankly, it would be weird if a game with so much realism didn't feature weapons that were used by proto-humans about 70,000 years ago. Seeing as how realistic, efficient ways of killing zombie usually go in Project Zomboid (meaning they are quickly nerfed after zomboid youtube players begin to show how they are, well, efficient), I decide to pull a post from the future regarding bows and crossbows: "IWBUMS 47.16 released! Balance Fixes: - Bowstrings now break much faster, despite the fact that in reality they usually last for 5-8 months of constant use. - Professional and sports bowstrings drastically reduced in loot tables. Including sports and hunting stores. - Bows and crossbows limbs durability drastically reduced. Professional and sports bows and crossbows now cannot be repaired. - Recipe for improvised bowstrings and arrows now require a huge bunch of super rare materials that will almost never spawn and require 8+ carpentry or they will break in -3 uses. - Damage for bows and crossbows reduced, requiring multiple shots to down a zombie. - Range accuracy for bows and crossbows greatly reduced. Players now need to stand at least two feet away from the zombie to have a 33% chance of landing a shot. On the zombie's leg. - Loading speed for crossbows increased by 150%. If the character has strength 10, the speed is lowered by 0.2%. - Removed ability to retrieve bolts and arrows from corpses. - Zombies can now accurately detect where the arrow or bolt were shot from. "Twang" and "Swish" sounds now detectable from a 30 yard radius. - Chance to land a shot on a zombie decreased by 90% unless the player has been stationary and aiming at said zombie for 8 seconds. - Noisemaker and Flaming arrows removed. Sounds like a mod thing and shouldn't be on the base game. Impossible to attach a small radio or set an arrowhead on fire in real life. - Archery Skill requires triple xp to level as compared to last patch. - Zombies now have a 95% chance to suddenly charge the player at x3 speed after hit with a non-lethal arrow. - Removed ability to nock an arrow or bolt while moving. Removed ability to nock an arrow or bolt while chewing bubblegum. PLEASE NOTE THIS IS IMPROVED, BUT NOT FINAL - potentially still some issues. May still be too strong. This is how you die, you know. - If we catch anyone on youtube still killing zombies efficiently despite these nerfs, expect more nerfs. Fair warning. - Maybe consider removing bows and crossbows altogether since they are too strong in the real world." So, my suggestion is: please DON'T do any of that. When you finally release bows and crossbows, don't make them unusable and lame. They are, indeed, silent and practical zombie-killing weapons with easy maintenance and are relatively easy to craft (consider that you can make a complete wooden house in less than a game day - a bow is trivial compared to that).

Melee movement disruption is way, WAY overtuned. It's really not hard to walk (not run) and strike with a weapon accurately against a target that just shambles towards you and does not defend itself. Using a weapon with longer reach, that's even easier. There's a reason spears were used for millenia, from cavemen to peasants to professional soldiers, in human history. Polearms are really easy to use, with very little training, even against stronger and larger prey. Against human-sized targets that completely ignore defense, walk slower than you and don't wear armor, it's child's play. My character now feels like she is wearing lead boots and took a shot of morphine before fighting. Every attack takes forever to recover from. Realistic 3d movement does not equal extreme clunkiness. It's like wearing full plate armor without any benefit whatsoever. Sometimes I feel like the devs watch some youtube videos with skilled players bringing down zombies efficiently, and they decide "We can't have that! Let's completely nerf X! This is how you died, after all!". I'm all for a good challenge, but certainly not at the expense of verisimilitude. My 81 year old great-grandmother can walk and hit me with a broom on the head (very accurately and multiple times) at the same time without stopping (true story). My 27 year old Athletic and Stout character (with 4 points in spears no less) can't strike a defenseless target and take one step back at the same time. If you really want to include that unrealistic feature, set it on for Apocalypse mode, not for Survivor (which was called "Fighter", and still has "Powerful Combat" in the description). I know there's a sandbox option for that, but I still don't think this has a place on Survivor. At the very least, let higher levels of combat skill (and by higher I mean 2+) fully negate the movement disruption. Finally, if anyone wants practical example, search youtube for videos on moving while striking. There's some very basic ones, even for people that never trained martial arts before.

1992's cars were much, much more resilient than modern cars, with hardened steel frames and thick sheet metal bodies. A muscle car, van or pickup truck from that time could trivially, easily obliterate a line of zombies and come out nearly unscathed. Older cars were even tougher, and since the map is rural Kentucky, most cars would be from the earlier decade. Maybe you didn't tweak the settings enough. Crank up vehicle zombie attraction multiplier, car damage on impact, damage to player on crash and set general car condition to very low. Give yourself Speed Demon for good measure and driving vehicles will be more dangerous than fighting a horde of sprinters. Like Boogie said, cars made the game more dynamic and gave us more options. You don't need to stay confined to a town building your base forever ad nauseum, you can explore the whole map without falling asleep on the keyboard running from place to place for hours.

Some of these could be reworked as traits, but I think we need more moodles: - Still Sleepy (Slight penalty to accuracy and movement speed after sleeping four or less hours or being forced awake. Caffeine removes moodlet.) - Disgusted (Slight penalty to accuracy when surrounded by dead bodies, flies and blood spatters. May lead to Queasy.) - Sugar High / Caffeine High (Slight increase to movement and perception after ingesting lots of sugar / caffeine.) - Sugar Crash / Caffeine Crash (Slight reduction to movement and perception after ingesting lots of sugar / caffeine.) - Tattered Apparel (Unhappiness increases when wearing heavily damaged.) - Trembling Fingers (Slower work speed to dexterity-based actions when cold / anxious / panicking.) - Inspired (Random chance positive moodlet after reading comics / magazines / books / newspapers. Increases morale.) - Feeling Safe (Slightly increased health regeneration when spending time in an unbreached, sealed safehouse. Nearby zombie banging / groaning removes moodlet.) - Comfortable Safehouse (Slightly increased movement and work speed when spending time in a clean safehouse full of decorations, quality furniture and rare items.) - Zombie Hunter (Slight bonus to accuracy and morale after killing lots of zombies. Wears out quickly after killing stops.) - Feeling Lucky (Slight bonus to morale after finding rare items, looting a survivor's house, fishing big fish, finding a pristine car with a key, etc.) - Escaped Death (Large morale bonus after being scratched / lacerated / bitten and not being infected. Lasts longer if character was bitten.)

Oh, I forgot to take a look at Steam, thanks leon. :) Still, I think it would be nice if we had more traits and jobs in the base game. ZAMN, I was going to say that Martial Artist wouldn't match the game's mood, but then I remembered Morgan from the Walking Dead. :p I like your psychological negative traits, though I think they should give a bit less points.

In advance: I DID search the forum to check if anyone had done this before, and didn't find anything. Sorry if my google-fu failed, there is like a decade of threads to look through. I thought maybe we could compile ideas for new jobs and traits in one thread? Old scattered ideas and new ones. I got some, not sure if they are good: Jobs: - Tailor +2 Tailoring +1 Maintenance [Patcher] Produces more cloth, denim and leather scraps when harvesting clothes. Spends less thread per use. - Mailman +1 Sprinting +1 Nimble +1 Fitness [Neighborhood Knowledge] Greater chance of finding annotated maps and more useful items found on mailboxes. - Biker +1 Mechanics +1 Short Blunt +1 Short Blade Maybe some buff related to motorcycles if/when those are implemented. There's a biker bar in southern Muldraugh, could be one of the spawn points. - Gravedigger (as in cemetery worker) +1 Strength +1 Long Blunt (Because shovels) [Almost one of us] Harder for zombies to notice. Less bothered by corpses around the house. - Shock Police +2 Short Blunt +1 Long Blunt [Guard] Helps the player to avoid being scratched when a blunt weapon is equipped. (As the old Guard skill) [Shock] Greater chance of knocking down a zombie when pushing. - Traceur +2 Nimble +2 Sprinting [Parkour] Faster climb and jump speed over walls, windows and fences. Diminished chance to get hurt when falling. - Coast Guard Diver +1 Fitness +1 Fishing +1 Spear - Plumber +1 Electrical +1 Mechanics +1 Carpentry +1 Maintenance Traits: - Easy Eater (-2) Reduced or negates mood penalties from eating unappetizing food (Dog Food, Insects, Rat Meat, etc). - Researcher (-2) Receives bigger multipliers from reading skill books. - Medieval Faire Enthusiast (-6) +1 Bonus to Long Blade, Long Blunt and Spear - Zombie Anatomist (-3) Higher first-aid skill grants more accuracy with bladed weapons. Using bladed weapons increases first-aid skill. - Bookworm (-1) Reading books, magazines, newspapers and comics reduce stress, unhappiness and/or boredom even more. - Green Thumb (-4) Better harvests when farming or foraging. - Getaway Driver (-2) Vehicles make less sound. Enter and exit cars faster. Open trunk faster. - Hylophobia(+3) Gets panicky in wooded or rural areas ( and wherever you can forage). - Gremlins (+2) Whenever using an electrical device, there's a chance of a loud sound happening because of a malfunction. Chance of stoves burning up and engines not working increased. - Mysophobia (+4) Gets panicked whenever body and/or clothes are dirty. Gets stressed whenever near piles of dead bodies or lots of blood. - Crippled Leg (+10) Speed permanently reduced. Running is more tiresome than usual. Greater chance to break legs. - Fussy (+3) Gain unhappiness and boredom whever eating most unprepared food (like eating a whole cabbage or onion, or eating soup out of a can). - Astraphobia (+2) Panics mildly when it rains or snows, panics greatly when there's fog or a storm. - Eye of the Storm (+7) Sadistic AI events happen much more frequently around the player. Helicopter events last longer (and are more frequent if multiple helicopter events are enabled). I'm going to stop or I'll go forever here. Hope some of these are passable, at least.

You're right syfy, I DID read the "How To Write A Good Suggestion" and somehow missed that. Twice! Nevermind then. Vanilla zombies forever it is.

Sorry if this was posted already. I didn't see it in the list of denied suggestions, at least. Wouldn't it be nice if there were some rare to find, more powerful zombies with different abilities and traits? Such as: - Bloodshower Zombie - Slow and very resilient. When it dies, it explodes in a shower of putrid gore that may infect nearby players - an incentive to kill it with ranged weapons. - Vomiting Zombie - These leave trails of greenish goo wherever they go. The substance isn't infectious, but slows down and deals acid damage to players if they step on it (damages shoes, too). It also ruins fertile ground and takes ages to go away. This slimy zombie is also more resistant to blunt weapons, and you definitely don't want to push it with your bare hands. - Siren Zombie - Stronger than most, and yells really loud when damaged (or when detecting a potential victim), attracting other zombies to it. - Carapace Zombie - This zombie displays hard chitinous scabs over its skin. Hard, tough and very effective at breaking doors / windows. - Spore Zombie - This seemingly regular zombies emanates a yellow miasma of disease. Other zombies that stick close to it for a while become temporary carriers, with smaller surrounding disease clouds (but lose the property if they stay away from Spore Zombie for too long). The miasma could contain a number of diseases, from annoying to lethal (maybe identified by the color of the cloud). - Racer Zombie - Although fragile, this guy runs really fast. It does not goes toward players at first - it prefer to circle them before attacking, almost like taunting. Other zombies in its surrounding area are also upgraded one speed level (slow shamblers to fast shamblers, for instance). - Drowned Zombie - These zombies spawn near bodies of water, and sometimes rise from water when the player is dangerously close to it. There is a very small chance to "catch" one of these while fishing, too... - Hunter-Killer - Found mostly in wooded areas. This nocturnal zombie moves silently and walks faster through vegetation than others of its kind. It is almost blind, but has a very keen sense of smell and good hearing. They usually stay hidden in dark places by day, when they are slower and less alert. - Devourer - This zombie is big and bloated. It eats corpses and, more rarely, even other zombies. It has three stages - one stronger and larger than the other. If left alone to feed, it becomes huge and very hard to kill. As expected, Devourers are drawn to places where players killed many zombies. - Haunt - These look like normal zombies by day, but their skin turns chalk-white by night. They also get faster, stronger and more alert. Some of these seem to be able to open unlocked doors and windows. Darklings also emit a very creepy noise when they are in the vincinity, disturbing sleeping players. - Zombie Lord - Faster, Stronger, Tougher - and smarter. Has the ability to quickly rally huge hordes, and the larger the horde, the stronger it becomes. The Zombie Lord have one of three abilities: Charge (move very fast toward a target once every 15 seconds); Rally (All surrounding zombies attack and move faster), or Cunning (The Zombie Lord may open doors, windows and even remove barricades to get to its target). I could go on and on... Also, these Elite Zombies could have a chance to drop interesting or unique loot (and achievements). Maybe players receive a special trait when they kill one. Maybe when these guys settle in an area, zombies spawn more quickly and aggressively there (prompting players to go on a hunt). When NPCs are in the game, they could give "quests" asking to kill the E.Zs.. What do you guys think?

"RJ has also been adding several new options to further customize sandbox, such as changing the speed that characters level up, and adjusting how quickly basic needs like hunger and thirst increase. This will allow for a lot more difficulty customization: playing with rapidly increasing hunger and rare loot will keep even the most seasoned Zomboid players on their toes." - November 10th Mondoid It's... Like devs actually read the forums! =D Game is amazing, and devs are amazing. Catering to all players, no one left behind. Customization IS crucial to the game. AAA companies should learn something from you guys. Sincerest thanks, The Indie Stone!

I understand this, Rath, but look - if an absolute computer amateur like myself can alter the .ini (or .lua) files to change game configurations beyond the options menu, I'm sure the devs can just port these into an easy to tinker with menu. As far as my very limited programming knowledge goes, the fact that the devs used lua as the game language makes it trivial to add the changes I was talking about. The graphic U.I. already exists (the existing sandbox customization menu)... I believe it's just a matter of adding more options to it - i.e.; linking the lua variables into the interface. Again, I'm talking about stuff I know next to nothing about, so I could be completely wrong.

Hey guys, first post here. Please forgive my bad english, it's not my first language. I think everyone is missing the point entirely - it doesn't matter if the "official" survival difficulty is harder, if there is a beginner mode, or whatever. The only sure way to please everyone is to have very detailed game customization options, so everyone gets their cup of tea. It's obvious that each person wants a different thing for the game (as it should be). Some want to feel like their lives hang by a thread every single second; others want to get a sense of progression and feel that they can make their way with enough effort and skill. Some don't care if realism is thrown out of the window for the sake of difficulty, and others feel the other way around. And, I think, most people want their own personal middle ground somewhere between the extremes. What I humbly think that could address all concerns is making more aspects of the game customizable in Sandbox Mode - let each person play the game like they want to. Set sliders for food spoilage, zombie horde strength and behavior; enable, disable, and set difficulty levels for things like food preservation, refrigeration, fishing, loot respawn, overall survivor behavior... Stuff like that. I could make a huge list! That would not just make Project Zomboid tailored for every player, but would also make each new game a different, unique experience each time you play it. It would make the game live longer for everyone. Some may argue that more customization sliders would bring more complication to the game; but those customizations are optional - you can still play your preset beginner or survival difficulties without picking any variables. Also, the devs should take into account that not everyone plays multiplayer (I do, actually, with a small group of five), and if "classes" are too specialized, lone survivors wouldn't have a very fun game. I agree some specialization would add up to the game (it's nice to depend on your friendly medic to heal, your creative chef to cook, your violent serial killer neighbor to whack the zeds around the base), but people playing in single player shouldn't feel like they are one trick ponies. TL;DR: Don't alienate part of your player base by setting fixed game variables - make those, well, variable. All of those, way more than sandbox allows now. Let we decided how deadly or realistic our version of undead Knox County is going to be.