How about having it so a player must start on the easiest setting and have several dozen NPC Survivors that tell the player how to play... like a tutorial they're forced to play? As the Survivor gains experience, unlock (or maybe even force) more difficult settings. Perhaps have difficulty settings like: "New Disease - Some people have died after being scratched by the dead" Maybe start in a funeral home where the deceased rises and scratches/bites the mourners. NPCs can give the player tips for looting abandoned structures as most people flee, not very many zombies yet. Maybe have the TVs working before the power goes out, have them give some bad advice like "stay in your home and wait for help" "Outbreak - The newly dead rise and attack the living" NPCs teach the player how to avoid and kill zombies, build simple structures "Epidemic (or pandemic or make both) - You're one of only a few to survive this long" Most NPCs would be dead by now, maybe have some turn against the player to help their own odds of surviving "Last person on Earth - Is there anyone else left?" Probably have this pretty much how "Survival" is now, maybe with a couple reclusive NPCs in each town... maybe an ally, maybe an enemy. I would like to see something much more difficult than the present difficulty of "survival"... I came in at build 29 (I understand it used to be harder), and honestly it gets boring after about an in-game month. You've made a roof-top farm and bedroom, stashed all the non-perishable food in dozens of crates lining the roof, killed every zombie in town and looted everything you could need for years. Unless something changes late-game, I think I could survive indefinately. I've eaten *maybe* a dozen bags of chips. Had my cabbage come in while I still had unspoiled food from before the grid went down. What I need is a giant horde of slow moving zombies to come through, knocking down wooden walls, destroying items, etc. that forces me to move. I can stay here forever. Maybe this should be a new topic, but since it deals with difficulty, I'll leave it here. I think there should be guns and ammo everywhere... This is set in the USA after all, our guns outnumber our people, I literally own more guns and ammo than what I've found in the game. Only down side is if you use them, you attract every zombie in a HUGE radius. In real life, even a 9mm pistol would be heard for at least a mile, shoot that .308 and you get zombies walking through the forrest from Muldraugh to West Point. Maybe bottle rockets to confuse zombies after gunfire?
